How Motherhood Changed Easter For Me

"But standing by the cross of Jesus was His mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." John 19:25


Easter has been irreversibly changed for me. 

Every morning this week, I've spent time studying and re-reading the Gospel accounts of the Easter story focusing on the actual timeline of Jesus' trial, crucifixion, burial and resurrection. Whoa, y'all. Seriously, though: WHOA.

Studying the disciples' accounts during the sequence of days these events unfolded over 2000 years ago has connected me to The Cross in ways that scripture has never connected with me before. Reading their words, hearing their accounts on the ACTUAL DAYS THAT THEY WERE HAPPENING has changed me. Forever. Scripture transported me there: I've been in the Upper Room. I've seen Jesus wash His disciples' feet. And I watched Judas trade his soul for 30 pieces of silver. I've fallen asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I've been by the fire with Peter. In the Praetorium with Pilate. On the road with Simon of Cyrene. At the cross with Mary. 

John's account is the one that really gets me. The way he tells it pierces me deeply. It hits that tender part of my heart motherhood created. Logically, I always knew Mary was at the cross. I'd heard that passage my entire life. But, until I became a mother, I never emotionally understood what John 19:25 indicated: That she was THERE. 

She smelled it. She smelled the metallic mingling of blood and sweat and vinegar as Jesus' body hung on His wooden cross that day. She heard it. She heard the pounding iron of the hammer driving the nails through His hands and feet. The jeers from the crowds as they mocked her son. The groans as He cried out to His Father. She felt it. She felt the darkness that came, enveloping their world for three hours as He bled and suffered and struggled. The unspeakable despair she must have withstood. To see the child she gave birth to, hanging there, beaten and bruised and bloodied for crimes He didn't commit. What a tragic day for a mother to witness.

To have to stand by and watch as people mocked your firstborn child. The boy you taught to talk. To walk. To run. To hear groans of anguish come from the same person you once heard squeal with boyish delight. To watch men shove a crown of thorns onto the same forehead you used to kiss goodnight. To drive nails into the same hands that used to fit perfectly into yours. To pound nails into the same feet you'd once heard scampering through your house all those years ago. To see the same eyes that were once filled with childhood delight now filled with unspeakable anguish. To see pain in his eyes that no kiss could soothe. To remember a lifetime's worth of His skinned elbows and bruised knees and busted lips pale in comparison to what you were forced to watch Him endure that fateful day.

Oh, Mary. What a job you were chosen to do. To be the one to raise my Messiah. To be the one to see both His first and His last breath. To willingly give over a delicate part of your heart to a sweet, precious baby, and then one day have that fragile part shattered by watching this gruesome moment in His life. That you would have to witness the suffering agony of not only your son, but of your Savior also. To remember the warmth of those pudgy toddler arms encircling your neck and then on this day to see those same arms stretched out onto a cross. For you. For me. A most worthless sinner: A gossip. A liar. Selfish. Self-seeking. Self-involved. To be called to love and raise a lamb for the slaughter. The Lamb. The One who would be slain for all humanity. 

What kind of offering that must have been. Mary, I can't imagine what you went through at Golgotha on that day. What you had to do to let Him go. But I know, that as a mother, as I have read and written and wept this week- you changed Easter for me. You took me to the foot of the cross in ways that only a fellow mother could. You've given me a view and a glimpse of His sacrifice that, before I was a mother, I would have never been able to see. So thank you. 
A thousand times- THANK YOU. 

And that is how motherhood changed Easter for me. 
(And I don't know what you're currently doing, but I've got to go hug my kids right now.)