26 When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.”
(John 19:26)
The curious onlookers had left the crucifixion scene, and the soldiers had cast lots for Jesus’ garments. But standing by the cross of Jesus remained his best friend John and several women, including his mother. When Jesus was a baby, Simeon had held him in his arms and prophesied that “a sword will pierce through” Mary’s soul. Could there be any more cutting, piercing pain for Mary than to see her son dying such a horrible death!
Scripture doesn’t give us much information about Jesus’ childhood. But we can imagine him staying near his parents, drawing spiritual lessons from the workings of the kitchen and carpenter shop. Probably Joseph had died, leaving Jesus to run the carpenter shop and provide a living for his mother and siblings, until they were old enough to leave home. From Matthew 13 we learn that Jesus had four brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, Judas—and at least three sisters. If these were spaced two years apart, the youngest would have been 16 when Jesus began his ministry. Then Mary his mother became as a disciple to him.
As Jesus hung on the cross, to paraphrase 19th century Scottish theologian Marcus Dods, Mary saw his head lifted in anguish and falling in weakness on his chest, and she could not gently take it in her hands and wipe the sweat of death from his brow. She saw his pierced hands and feet become numbed and swollen and bruised, but could not stroke them. She saw him gasp with pain as cramps seized part after part of his outstretched body, and she could not change his posture nor so much as caress one of his hands. And she had to suffer this in profound desolation of spirit. Her life seemed to be buried at the cross.
Even in his dying moments Jesus was thinking of the needs of others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called him “the man for others.” He cared for the spiritual needs of the soldiers, asking God’s forgiveness for them. He ministered to the thieves who were dying beside him. And he especially thought of the needs of his mother. Seeing his disciple John standing nearby, he asked him to take care of her as if she were his own mother. It was a final gift he could offer to her even as he remained helpless on the cross. Truly he was “the man for others.”
Glen Anderson
