#3: “Woman, behold your son...
…Here is your mother”
John 19:25b-27 - Victory Fellowship
March 7, 2021 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
3rd Sunday in Lent
I. INTRODUCTION:
a. We pay keen attention to the words people say just before they die.
b. Jesus spoke seven times during the closing moments on the Cross. Before the darkness overwhelmed them, Jesus spoke three times. While the darkness hung, He spoke once. And after the darkness had passed, He spoke three more times.
c. The seven utterances of Jesus from the cross reveal God’s answer to our basic needs. Jesus spoke words on the Cross that are worthy of our study because of who, where, and why they were spoken - and what they mean.
d. Here we find deep expressions of our Savior in His time of terrible agony right as He paid the price of our redemption.
e. Jesus’ statements are taken from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - but assembled into what was probably their chronological as they were uttered. Jesus was consistent in His life and in His message until the end. Let us briefly reflect on the seven last words of Jesus before He died on the cross:
1. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."
2. "This day you will be with me in Paradise."
3. "Woman, behold your son…Here is your mother"
4. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
5. "I thirst."
6. "It is finished."
7. "Into your hands I commit my spirit."
f. Each week, for the next few weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, we will examine one of the statements Jesus made.
II. "Woman, behold your son…Here is your mother"
a. While the crowd mocked and jeered, it is good to know that there were those present who really cared. Jesus looked down and saw His mother standing near the Cross. By her side was the disciple John. Jesus, looking down from the cross, was still filled with the concerns of a son for the earthly needs of his mother. None of his brothers were there to care for her, so he gave this task to the Apostle John. Here we clearly see Christ’s humanity.
b. Jesus said to his mother: "Woman, behold your son" and then to John He said, “Here is your mother.”
c. Everybody had rejected and/or abandoned Jesus. Yet His faithful mother stood there sorrowing at the foot of the Cross. Also John, his beloved disciple, was there and Jesus established a new relationship between Mary and John.
d. The First Word from the cross was for forgiveness. The Second Word from the Cross ministered salvation to the penitent sinner, but the Third Word introduces us to the wider implications of our salvation. It profiles relationships as seen through the lens of the cross of Jesus. Relationships are built on love. At the very heart of our relationship with God is the love that Jesus gave us on the cross.
e. This Third Word from the Cross also reveals the relationship of Jesus with his disciple John, the one who had been closest to him. John’s gospel contains several of the most important statements that Jesus made on love.
i. "Greater love has no one than this that one lays down his life for his friends" (15:13).
ii. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (3:16).
III. LOVE is the Key
a. This Word tells us that there’s love for you on the cross, and it’s a love which having been received, is to be shared with others.
PRAYER
SONG: In Jesus’ Name
