May 9, Mother’s Day
John 15:12-17
Three of the great commemorative days in the Australian calendar have to do with sacrifice: Good Friday, Anzac Day and Mother’s Day. On these occasions we pause to acknowledge the sacrificial love seen in the death of Jesus, in the price paid by those who have died or been maimed in the armed services of our country and the self-giving of mothers for the welfare of their families.
Commercial enterprises have seized on Mothers’ Day as an opportunity to make money, but that is no reason to discard the true significance of Mothers’ Day. Beginning in St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia in the United States in 1907, it was transplanted to Sydney seventeen years later by Janet Hayden specifically to draw attention to the plight of lonely, elderly women that she visited in hospital.
Motherhood has undergone many changes since then, but the day has become firmly set in the Australian calendar as a day to celebrate a mother’s love for her children and her family and to say thanks. With that, we draw attention to the sacrifices that love necessarily entails whether it be parental, patriotic or divine. As Jesus said in John 15:13, the greatest kind of love is the love that gives of oneself utterly and completely for the sake of the other.
- What sacrifices do mothers typically make for their children and families?
- How has motherhood changed over the past fifty years?
- The Bible speaks frequently of God as Father. Is it appropriate to also speak of God as Mother?
- How do we live the commandment of John15:12 in our family life?
