Lent 4 Mothering Sunday March 30th 2025
Dear Mum, You just don’t get me.
Dear Mum,
This letter will probably sound a little fractious, almost as if I am writing in anger. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
I am writing this letter out of my deepest love for you and I am trying to explain who I really am. So I put these words down to reassure you. It would have been impossible for anyone to ‘Get me, to understand me.’ No-one can ever truly comprehend the complete fusion between God and humanity and I never once expected you to. You might have naively hoped to understand me, but the brutal reality is that you were never going to. I mean, what mother ever completely understands their own child. Really. Children are always a googly, changing, mysterious enigma. A delightful bundle of incomprehension, joy and bewilderment. Everybody is all of these things growing up. A constant source of befuddlement, laughter, embarrassment and endearment. I’m sure Anne and Joachim would say exactly the same about you. This does not mean that they didn’t love you, but part of your attraction for them, as I am to you, is that parents almost get it and yet never quite do. We are always led further on and further into the mystery that is another human being. I wanted to say that it's OK. So please don’t be too hard on yourself because there are things that are going to happen shortly that will take you and test you, to your very limits and beyond.
I know that for most of the time it was normal growing pains on both our parts. The joy and gurgle, the sleepless nights, the bemusement as I learnt the language and the way I was intrigued by the goings on at the local synagogue. The normal hurly burly and grist of simply growing up and becoming an adult.
But then there were a couple of times when you bumped into and were confronted by the ‘other’.
I well remember our ‘adventure’ when we all went up to Jerusalem for the passover. I was twelve and I stayed behind to argue the toss with the local clergy. It was all rather entertaining and they were amazed at my theological parry and thrust. Of course I was well fed and had somewhere to doss down at night. I was having a lovely time. You however, were incensed and worried. You relentlessly scoured all the streets of Jerusalem when you should have realised that of course the temple, the place of worship and sacrifice, is where I was always going to be.
I can still hear your words ringing around the walls of the temple and in my ears.
“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.!”
And if you thought I was going to be apologetic and remorseful, then this is one of those times when you simply didn’t understand. I bet you remember what I said.
“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
I answered your question with questions of my own.
You didn’t get me mum.
But then… How could you? How could anyone?
And only a few years ago at the wedding of Josiah and Dorcas we had another difference of opinion. By now, you had realised that there was this other side to me. That where there was a pastoral need I was always persuadable to help. But at the wedding I still wasn’t quite ready. The hour had not yet come.
When the wine gave out you suggested that I might like to do something about it, if only for the sake of Josiah and Dorcas. So in front of the waiters you simply said ‘Just do whatever he tells you’. Always pointing to me whether I wanted you to or not. You left me no other option and the rumour wheels began to furiously spin.
In a few days time there will be other things which I am pretty sure that you will not understand. You will find yourself with John and a few others watching me die at the hands of others. It will not be pretty and it will not be pleasant. You will wonder what is going on. This is the bit where the sword will pierce your heart.
I’m going to try to explain it now for when the time comes and for days that will follow.
It may not look like it, but right there in the blood and the tears is where you will again glimpse something of that ‘otherness’ about me.
To completely and utterly offer yourself for others without holding anything back, that is stuff of the God who created the heavens and earth. That is more powerful than the holding back of the Red Sea and the providing of water and manna in the desert.
And it is also what makes you so beautiful Mum, because you gave your all, body and heart and tears and soul to the very same God who asked everything of you. I know that you have pondered all these things in your heart without coming to a neat, tidy, concise answer. You may not have quite got me and those who will string me up will not get it either. But ultimately, you said ‘Yes’ and that is what makes you the most blessed of all women. I am thrilled to be able to call you …Mum.
Always your Son and always with love
Jesus.