Pfarrkirche St Peter Paul Oberammergau
Good Friday. Broken Heart Friday. Black Dark Friday.
Mary cried. I just know she did.
I just about what Jesus may have thought that day. I wondered more about Mary.
Our adult kids can often confuse us and we wonder. What in the world? Where did they ever get that idea?
Mary had some of those thoughts along with His siblings even knowing Him and more than likely trusting Him. She must have wondered like moms do.
Years ago I sat up too late and read the news in the internet. We were overseas. Our adult and college kids were in the US and Iraq.
A news flash. Helicopter down in Tal Afar. Seven were dead.
My son was in Tal Afar. He rode in helicopters on occasion, not very often at all. I panicked. I was in anguish with the not knowing. I checked and rechecked that site as the hours ticked by. Hours until there was an update that included the unit information.
Have you ever had to ask your child, “Do they have the you know, do they know where we are if….?” question. I couldn’t finish it. He did. Yes, Mom, they know. Just in case he was hurt or worse. Hardest question I ever had to ask one of my children. EVER.
There were a lot of hard questions; some I did ask; some I held in my heart. If you are a mom of a solider or Marine who has been in combat you know that question.
What did Mary and Jesus talk about? What did she ask Him? Did she understand?
During those hours in the dark of the night, I prayed and though I tried to think, I didn’t. I could not. I combed the internet new services. Finally after several hours the news came. It was not him.
I breathed then I felt anguish for those moms and dads and wives and children and everyone who they loved. And I prayed. I still pray for them sometimes after all these years. Anguish.
I know why women wail in mourning and despair. Did Mary wail?
Mary was at the foot of the cross where her son hung. She had a night and day of rumors and anguish. Did she understand what was happening? Did it matter to her heart that day? Surely she had some hope but even in the hope her heart must have been so tightly holding her love for this man, her son. I felt anguish at the possibility. For Mary, this was not mere possibility. It was happening and it took hours and hours of waiting and then the seeing and watching.
Good Friday is a day for remembering the anguish of the cross. The enemy did not win and would not. Still the battle raged until it was finished. Mary went through it with a mother’s heart.
A fresh perception through a mother’s heart gave me a different perspective. The sorrow and grief of my sin hit me as I reflected on being a mom myself and how Mary must have felt. How God felt at His son’s death. Somehow, I gave me a new perception of my own sin and the agony it cost HIm.
I wept today.
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. John 19:25
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