Tonight we focus on our Lord’s words of compassion spoken to His mother Mary, “Woman, behold your son!”, and to John (otherwise known as “the disciple whom He loved), “Behold, your mother!” Jesus spoke these words because, following His ascension into heaven, He would no longer be present in this world the way He had been during His days of humiliation - visibly and locally present, and out of His compassion for them He was concerned that both His mother and His disciple be taken care of and provided for. With these words Jesus entrusted His mother into John’s care and John into His mother’s. Mary and John were given new vocations as they stood at the foot of Christ’s cross: Mary would care for John as if he were her own son, and John would care for Mary as if she were his own mother, with all the responsibility and accountability that went along with these new callings. And yet, both Mary and John had their own families. Jesus had at least four other half-brothers whose names were James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. He also had a number of sisters, whose names we aren’t given. Any one of them (or all, for that matter) should have been responsible for taking care of their mother Mary, not only because they were her children, but also because by this time it is likely that their father Joseph had since passed away, leaving Mary widowed. So, Mary didn’t need John to take care of her; she didn’t need another son. Neither did John need another mother. He was the youngest of all the disciples, probably in his twenties at this point, and most likely his mother would have still been living.
So, why does Jesus speak these words to Mary and John, when they already had families of their own to take care of them? Because with these words Jesus institutes a new family, a family not of the flesh but of the Spirit. It’s a family we are born into not by the natural birth we receive from our fathers and mothers, but by the spiritual birth we receive by way of water and the Holy Spirit. It is the birth from above, that we are given through our Baptism into Christ. It is this new birth, this second birth, that makes all believers in Christ sons of God and brothers and sisters of one another. And it is those who are so born again that Jesus calls His brothers, sisters, and mother, as well as His body in this world. Therefore, we are to love and care for our fellow baptized believers in Christ, as if they were our own mothers, brothers, and sisters, because in fact they are. And they are in an even greater way than our natural relatives, because we will live with the members of this family for all eternity in heaven with our Brother, Jesus Christ, who purchased us with His blood shed on the cross.
To care for the members of this family is to care for the body of Christ, so that what you do for any one of them you do for Him. Not only that, but unbelievers should be aware that anything they do to the members of Christ’s body they do to Him. When Jesus confronted Saul while he was on his way to Damascus to arrest the Christians that were there, Jesus said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” In persecuting Christ’s people, Saul was persecuting Christ Himself. When His body suffers, Christ suffers with it. When His body rejoices, He rejoices with it. Jesus cares for His Church, as if it were His own body. And, in fact, because of her intimate connection to Him by way of her Baptism into Him and through the eating and drinking of His body and blood, the Church is Christ’s body in this world. And since His ascension into heaven, this is how He cares for us in this world - through the members of His body, the Church.
Christ is not absent from His Church. He, the whole Jesus - both in spirit and body, promises to be with us always, even to the end of the age. He promises never to leave us or to forsake us. The Man, Jesus Christ, is where His body, the Church, is. Yet, since His ascension into heaven He is not what we call locally or visibly present among us, that is, we don’t see Him with our eyes now like they did 2,000 years ago. Nor does He work among us the way He did back then, using His own hands, feet, and mouth to care for us. We Christians today are His hands, feet, and mouth. He who is present among us just as He promises to be uses us as His instruments to care and provide for one another. To receive such care and provision from our brothers and sisters in Christ is to receive it from Christ Himself. We don’t need to look for or expect Jesus to act miraculously on our behalf. Though He may do it this way, He normally shows His compassion to us through the members of His body as they work through their various callings to provide for our needs.
For this reason, no one can say, “I don’t need other Christians; I don’t need the body of Christ.” With His words to Mary and John, Jesus makes it clear that they do need each other, and that that is the way He now chooses to care for them and provide for their needs. These needs not only include the needs of the body, but also the needs of the soul. The members of Christ’s body are not only concerned that their brothers and sisters in Christ receive the bread you can buy at Safeway, but also the Bread of God’s Word. The former can be provided even by earthly families and unbelievers. The latter, however, can only come from fellow believers in Christ. Here, Mary represents the Church and John an individual believer in it. As the Church takes care of each of her children - providing them with the spiritual food of God’s Word and Sacraments, delivering Jesus and the forgiveness of sins to them, so believers will take care of the Church - making sure she does not want for anything, making sure she is protected from false doctrine and from anything that would hinder her from proclaiming the Gospel.
And so, with His blood shed at Calvary, Jesus institutes a new family, one that has been cleansed by His blood in Holy Baptism, whose members eat and drink of His Word and His body and blood, and who care and provide for one another in both body and soul. In His compassion Jesus has not left us as orphans. Though He has ascended into heaven, He Himself is present among us in both body and soul as well as in the members of His body, the Church. In Jesus we are all children of one heavenly Father with Christ as our Brother. Let us together stand at the foot of Christ’s cross, as Mary and John did, and listen to His words spoken to us for whom He died. Let us live under His compassion for us, so that we might show that compassion towards one another, living towards each other as Christ our Head lives towards us. And in so doing, we will show the world what it means to belong to the family of God. Amen.