Words for Worship

Ministry Today

It has to be said we in the protestant tradition have found Mary a problem. In both the Roman Catholic and orthodox traditions, they have her close to the centre of their spiritual life. Since, as the early Church thinkers agreed – she was the bearer of the word – a phrase that was intended to emphasise the divine status of Christ rather than that of Mary. Well, I don’t intend to drag up a load of theological argument here – and for that I can see relief on your faces. Suffice to say what better day than mother’s day to re-examine Mary as mother; The mother who did the usual motherly things such as bearing her son, being there as he grew and worrying as he chose his path in life. But also the mother who had to endure unusual things too. Since, she had to watch her son suffer. She outlived her son. She was bereft of her son rather than the other way around. And that is painful! For who listening to the news of this week alone has not found the pain of mothers of the soldiers killed Afghanistan as almost beyond bearing let alone relief. Yet bear it we and they must.

So as we continue with Christians of all denominations across the UK to study the people at the Edge of Christ’s pain  – let’s go to the one who was within a maelstrom of her own pain – the one who suffered the pain of a mother. Because if Mary had written a posthumous letter to her son that might sound like this;

I am silent, shocked.
You passed me by and I saw your eyes. Those deep pools of disappointment and despair. We have known each other from that first moment of conception, that deep indwelling. That moment of divine encounter has brought us both to this. This place... of darkness and humiliation. How many mothers have travelled this road before, and how many must walk this way in times to come? My love, my heart.

I would take your place willingly, but know it cannot be. So I must again fall back into God's grace and be carried to this hill, which seems so steep.
I am haunted by your face that I have fed and cleaned and wiped and loved. My dear Son, what will become of us. Such pain is indescribable, for both of us, and there are no tears now because they have already been drained and dried.
And yet I must pray.
Are tears prayers?

Well, I wonder if the mother of Jamie Bolger or Ashleigh Hall could write anything more poignant or heart rendering. I don’t think so!

But then in the midst of that pain, she as the one human closest associated with the word of God goes on to proclaim:

Then perhaps I have already said a thousand prayers this day. We have lived so much with mystery, unknowing but accepting, rooted in a life directed by our life's source. O God, in the midst of this pain shapes my weakness. I must seek your face always, reach into your unknowable ways and be sustained through this madness that surrounds me. We must do what God requires of us... both of us.

Many years ago, we were coming back to Britain from a holiday in Brittany via the Norman port of ousterheim. Needless to say, we did the usual cooks tour of the D-Day beaches. But we also made a visit to a memento of a far earlier invasion; this time in the opposite direction. Of course, we visited the Bayeux tapestry. Now this work which is technically an embroidery was commissioned around 1070 by William the conqueror’s half brother who happened to be bishop of Bayeux. Actually despite is huge length of over 70 metres it is only about a foot wide. However, the armoured glass fronted case did not allow a view of the back of this most famous of tapestry. Because it’s the sign of any great needlework that the back looks as neat as the front. Nevertheless, no matter how skilled tapestry maker is, the reverse can never reveal the completed picture seen the right way round. And so it is true of life as we experience it. Even though it has a beauty, it shows only clues of what the real picture is.

And here then is the point for us today – the point for us looking to have a glimmer of sense in life’s pains. Because artists have for centuries depicted Mary at the foot of the cross in emotional pain and spiritual turmoil. Yet they cannot show us the real picture from the front as it were. For none can show what must have been passing through her mind.

Because, perhaps she remembered that visit more than thirty years before from the Angel Gabriel who came to her saying "hail Mary, full of grace". Words that echoed into her current misery at the foot of the cross. For outwardly those words had spelled pain. Since the angel was telling her that she was a pregnant woman outside wedlock. Therefore, Gabriel was showing her a picture that seemed to contain nothing but shame, pain and isolation. A small crucifixion in its own right if you like.  In summary, a time when apparently the worst had happened .

Yet on the edge of her pain, she responded with a faith that allowed her to proclaim here trust in God by the words of the Magnificat which predicted the saving acts of God in her Son. Her words then from the very depths were all about the promise of God to her as a mother. Since, in faith, she knew that pain does have unseen purpose.  She knew that Golgotha was the only way to her hope filled visions. She knew too that Christ’s suffering was the pivotal point of all human suffering. She indeed knew that it was his life and death and resurrection that would turn the picture round. Because it is the cross alone that gives light as well as shade to those words – those momentous words - It is finished.

So, today, as we remember the Mother of our Lord, may we also pray for all mothers, that they too may be filled with God's grace - especially those who endure great suffering and heartbreak. We pray as well for the vulnerable that are offered our care with the words – here is your mother. And we ask blessing on all who care for us through those words – Woman, here is your Son. Because, if we do, we move from the edge of suffering, through the cross to the very state, nation and kingdom of Grace. Moreover, we will be called blessed

Now, are you in the  picture?

Let us pray

Holy One
Grace us into understanding
Fill us with your Word made flesh
Shrink our certainties and enlarge our need of you
Unlock the dark places in our hearts
So that we might becomes wholly, completely yours
Grace us into loving and living and laughing
Your Kingdom come. Amen

Virgin Mary