Rev. Nick Cheek
Isaiah 53: 7-9 and Luke 23: 35-42
At the foot of the cross, Mary kneels. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold your son. Behold the pain, the agony, the helplessness. Behold the tears.
Mary was the mother of Jesus. She was a parent. And like any other parent, to see your child in that place is unimaginable. As she watches the tragedy unfold, past memories must have filled her mind. Jesus’ first cry. His first steps. The moment her baby boy was able to look at Mary and call her “imma,” mother in Aramaic. Mary may have remembered the time they lost Jesus in Jerusalem, when he was left behind. Frantically, Joseph and Mary searched for him, only to find Jesus doing the “business of God,” teaching in the temple. It was one of those moments all parents have. Jesus, the teen, telling mom and dad to stop worrying. I’m fine. I don’t need you watching my every move. Give me some space. I’m older now. Little did Jesus know that parents never stop worrying about their children, no matter how old they become. It is just something we do. Parents cannot help it.
And so, as Mary beholds her grown son nailed to a tree, she cannot help but worry. She cannot help but feel some sort of responsibility. “What could I have done differently? Why couldn’t I have prevented this from happening? Where did I go wrong? Was it the wedding in Canaan, when I urged Jesus to change the water into wine? Is this all my fault? Is he on that cross because of me?” It is also possible that Mary’s sadness turned to anger, anger at God. “Why are we here, God? Decades ago, the angel said, ‘Do not fear.’ You said Jesus would be called the Son of the Most High and that his kingdom would have no end. You promised, and yet here we are at this cross. Why, God, would you let this tragedy happen to him, to my son, and to me?”
At the cross we encounter a family in deep pain. It is a story of loss. Behold the violence of the world. Behold the uncertainty of life. The story of Mary and Jesus turns our attention to other tragedies that have struck families and communities this past week, families standing at their own crosses.
In Gaza, parents continue searching through the rubble of their homes for their children. In Ukraine, mothers and fathers send their children to school beneath the sound of sirens, never fully sure if the day will end in peace or in loss. And just this week in Iran, a bombing struck a girls’ school, children caught in a conflict they did not create. What do we do in the face of such pain? How are we to respond?
In our story this morning, as Jesus’ breathing slows, he looks down from the cross and sees his mother. Even in his current pain, his heart is filled with compassion for her. He knows the loss she is about to bear. And so he speaks, “Woman, behold your son.” But Jesus is not talking about himself. He is referring to John, the disciple he loved. John was the only disciple who was brave enough not to run and hide, but to remain at Mary’s side this entire time, walking her up to Calvary’s hill and faithfully holding Mary’s hand. Similarly, Jesus turns to John and says, “Son, behold your mother.”
There is more happening here than we think. For one, Jesus is trying to ensure that his mother is taken care of after he is gone. But what we also see is something deeper and more profound. We see a promise. A promise of community. We see a new way of thinking about who we belong to.
On the cross, Jesus did not ask John to take care of Mary, Jesus’ mother. Jesus said to John, “John, I want you to look at this woman as though she was your own mother, your own flesh and blood.” And to Mary Jesus did the same. “Mary, look at John. Behold him as though he was your own son.”
In her book Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints, Elizabeth Johnson further explains this promise. She writes, “The symbolic theological importance of the crucifixion scene in John surfaces in the idea that at the end of his life, Jesus brought into being a community in the very Spirit that flowed from him on the cross. Two great figures without a name appear, the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple. Both are historical persons but are not named here because they are functioning as symbols. Standing by the cross they are turned toward each other by Jesus’ words and given into each other’s care. Behold, look. Beholding each other in a new relationship, the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple mark the birth of a new family of faith founded on the grace of God.”
At the foot of the cross, John and Mary were called to behold one another as family, as flesh and blood. What does that look like today? How do we continue to see one another as flesh and blood, brother and sister, mother and daughter?
During the earliest days of the war in Ukraine, millions of refugees began crossing the border into Poland. Train stations became filled with exhausted families, mothers holding children, grandparents carrying bags, and people who had left everything behind. Remarkably, in the middle of the night ordinary families began showing up at those stations. They stood there holding handmade signs that read, “Room for two,” “Family welcome,” and “You can stay with us.” They opened their homes, provided beds and food, and cared for their children. In the midst of that conflict they looked at strangers and said, “Behold, you are family.” Just this past week we saw something similar in Beirut. Following Israeli strikes that displaced hundreds of thousands across Lebanon, St. Joseph Tabaris Parish opened its doors to families who had nowhere else to go. One of the individuals seeking refuge was a woman named Ridina Muhammad, a Sudanese refugee who was eight months pregnant. She fled on foot with her husband and children after their home was destroyed. Upon arriving in Beirut they had nowhere to stay, but the church welcomed them in. Soon the sanctuary and hallways filled with families from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other places. At a time when nations, borders, and systems were failing, a church looked at frightened families and said, “Behold, you belong here. Behold, you are flesh and blood.”
This word “behold” echoes right here at Trinity too. It echoes throughout the week while this campus is filled with life. Every day parents drop their little ones off here, trusting that this community will care for them, teach them, and help them grow. On this same ground, through our partnership with Philips Academy, young people find a place where they are seen, supported, and encouraged. Teachers, mentors, and volunteers show up day after day, offering not only education but presence. In those ordinary moments something sacred is happening. We are looking at those young lives, and the families who love them, and saying in our own way, “Behold, you are God’s beloved.” The word also echoes as we continue to discern how our campus might be a place where attainable housing can ease the burden for teachers, young families, first responders, and workers who long to serve this city and remain in Charlotte but struggle to afford it. Church, when we realize that this land entrusted to us can be mission, it becomes more than property. It becomes a living witness to the words of Jesus from the cross. Behold, I see you. You matter. We are here to support you as though you were family.
Whenever we baptize children we proclaim a great and wonderful promise. We say together as a church family, “Behold, God’s beloved.” Our baptismal covenant claims each of us as brothers and sisters. But that covenant promise extends beyond these walls. It extends even beyond our Christian brothers and sisters. This promise reaches across race, across culture, across demographic, across language, across faiths, and across all of our differences. This promise reminds us that we belong to one another. We are each other’s flesh and blood.
I want to end this sermon back with Mary at the foot of the cross, with a poem, Woman’s Body by Frances Croak Frank
“Did the woman say,
When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,
After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?
Did the woman say,
When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,
After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?”
Church, imagine for a moment how our own community and our own nation would change if we were able to look at one another, and say, “Behold, my flesh and blood. Behold, my brother, my sister. Behold, my family.”
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.