Sing we, too, of Mary's sorrows

Exodus 2:1-10 This is one of the Hebrew children

2 Corinthians 1:1,3-7 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

Luke 2:33-35 “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed”

 

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our affliction,

so that we may be able to comfort those

who are in any affliction,

with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.’

(2 Corinthians 1.1)

 

+

 

At home our family has an icon, known as the Icon of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.

 

Around the serene figure of Mary, the Blessed Mother of the Lord, there are seven swords, each representing a sorrow.

 

Her face, in its serenity, is suggestive of a woman who has seen affliction, and received comfort from ‘the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort’ of whom St Paul writes.

 

And, Paul continues: having received comfort in affliction, we ourselves are to comfort the afflicted in turn.

 

In the icon Mary’s face of maternal love reflects comfort received and comfort shown.

 

The Blessed Mother, Mary, certainly knew affliction.

 

Her seven sorrows begin with the prophecy we have just heard when the aged man Simeon speaks on the day Mary and Joseph present Jesus in the Temple when he is 40 days old (Luke 2:34-35).

 

The second sorrow is the flight of Mary and Joseph with their infant son to Egypt, as Herod seeks his life and kills all the little children in and around Bethlehem and Jerusalem (Matthew 2.13-21).

 

That sorrow is an echo of the life of Moses.

 

The third is the utter sense of loss Mary and Joseph experience when the 12 year old Jesus is missing in Jerusalem, eventually to be found in the Temple with the Teachers of the Law (Luke 2.41-50).

 

So, the first three are in Jesus’ infancy and are shared with Joseph.

 

The next four are in Jesus’ adulthood.

 

Sorrows four and five are in the midst of the crowds, as Mary sees Jesus carry his cross (John 19.17) to his execution and is then crucified (John 19.18-30): how alone she must have felt in a surging crowd baying for her Son’s blood.

 

Mary saw Jesus born now sees him die.

 

The film The Passion of the Christ, portrays Jesus stumbling whilst carrying the cross, and Mary has a flashback of Jesus as a little boy falling over, as little boys and girls do, and cutting his knee.

 

She scooped him up; how she wanted to now as he falls, once, twice, three times, already bloodied from the brutality of being whipped and scourged, stumbling under the weight of the Cross.

 

In the sixth and seventh sorrows Mary is with the intimate circle of disciples, who love her.

 

One of them, known as the Beloved Disciple, will take her into his own home; but her firstborn Son is dead.

 

She sees his dead, limp, lifeless body, in sorrow six, taken down from the cross (John 19.39-40).

 

And in the final sorrow her boy’s body is laid in a tomb (John 19.39-42.)

 

Those seven sorrows capture in an intense way the pains of motherhood and the cost of love.

 

Mother of affliction indeed.

 

And we see the anguish of Moses’ mother who, rather than see her son die in Pharaoh’s genocidal massacre of Hebrew boys, placed him in a basket amongst the rushes on the bank of the River Nile and trusted the God of all comfort in affliction.

 

Both mothers, Jochebed (cf Exodus 6.20, Numbers 26.59) and Mary - daughters of Israel - had to let go of their sons to enable the Lord to work his wonders through them.

 

The spiritual writer Esther de Waal captures this, saying that, ‘The loving is in the letting go’.

 

What a painful, haunting yet comforting phrase.

 

It is true that when we let go we love, because we are letting someone go into God’s hands, and we relinquish our control.

 

As we might say, children need a loving mother not a controlling smother.

 

Indeed, in what human relationship is that not true?

 

And their mothers having let them go, God raised up both sons: Moses to liberate the Hebrews from slavery to the Egyptians; Jesus to liberate all humanity from our slavery to sin.

 

And Jesus is, of course, greater than Moses (cf Hebrews 3.1-6): the Gospel of John tells us, ‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (John 1.17).

 

It is on Jesus that we fix our sights in Lent.

 

Mothering Sunday converges with Refreshment Sunday as we journey towards the annual proclamation of the life giving Cross and saving Resurrection of Christ; the time when we know the comfort in affliction that flows, with maternal care, from the loving heart of God.

 

Thankfully there is also a tradition of the Seven Joys of Mary too (they’ll be for another time): joy and sorrow, tears and glory intermingle in Mary’s life as they surely do in our yours and mine and all mothers.

 

In that joy and sorry, in tears and glory Mary points us, rightly to her Divine Son, the Saviour.

 

 ‘Do whatever he tells you’ she says to the servants at the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2.4).

 

They are to prepare abundant amounts of water which Christ will take and transform into the flowing wine of the kingdom, which to believers is the lifeblood that flows from his body on the Cross:

 

Glory be to Jesus,

who in bitter pains

poured for me the lifeblood

from his sacred veins.

 

This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel.

 

Christ falls on his way to the cross, and falls into death. Having descended into the depths he is raised, bringing life, hope and comfort in his resurrection.

 

In the conviction of the resurrection of the Lord, St Paul writes, ‘Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort’. (2 Corinthians 1.7)

 

May we all, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, one in the Lord know His comfort in our afflictions and sorrow.