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What does the word “Mummy” / “Mother” mean to you? What images come into your head when I say “Mum”? Here’s one that pops into my head: someone wearing an apron! Perhaps for a couple of moments, we could share some thoughts with those sitting around us – just tell someone else now what you think of when you hear the word “Mum” / “Mother”...
Lots of our thoughts, images of mothers have to do with caring / helping /comforting/ rescuing us from muddle / mess we get into – especially when we’re children.
Our OT reading was about Moses. He grew up to be one of the great heroes of the Bible. Through Moses’ leadership, God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and led them out towards the Promised Land. But Moses’ own life starts with him needing to be rescued. The Egyptians felt themselves threatened by the growing population of the Hebrew under-class. Like other Hebrew male babies at the time, Moses’ life was in danger through the King of Egypt’s ethnic cleansing policy.
Before Moses could become one of God’s heroes and help others, he himself needed rescue. His future depended on the loving actions of three people who rescued him from imminent danger. Let’s think a bit more about them together:
1st Moses birth-mother.
Just try to imagine how she must have felt... She’s rather like countless other mothers in situations of danger, persecution around our world today...
She’s just given birth to a new baby: a fine, healthy baby. While he’s a new-born, she can hide him. But as he gets bigger, lungs stronger, cries louder – harder to hide – she realizes she has to do something else – something that might well have meant she never saw her son again. How do you think she felt as she made that Moses’ basket, then put her precious baby in it and left him in the bull-rushes?
Sometimes motherly love involves letting go. Yes – on this occasion as the story unfolds we see that Moses’ mother was able to nurse him again for a while. But she didn’t know about that when she left him at the river’s edge. It’s the opposite of keeping your kids tied to your apron strings isn’t it? Sometimes, we have to take the risk of letting go of those whom we love in order that God’s plans can take shape.
2nd there’s Moses’ sister.
Other stories in the OT tells us that Moses had a sister called Miriam, so it’s likely this girl was called Miriam. We don’t know how old she was; probably just a young girl here. Hiding in the tall grass at the riverside – watching anxiously to see what would happen to her baby brother; how do you think she felt?
In spite of her own fears, she was brave and bold and resourceful. It was her quick-thinking, her courage in approaching the king’s daughter that enabled baby Moses to be reunited with his own Mum. Miriam’s love for her family made her brave and bold. I think if she’d been around today, she’d be the kind of young person who’s always texting or emailing her friends –sorting out upsets – even if it means she gets misunderstood or bad-mouthed herself now and then.
When we care about our families and friends, then we need to be ready to put ourselves out for them. Like doing some of the Actions in our Love Life Live Lent booklets – getting into the habit of doing positive, generous things. Sometimes we, like Miriam, need God’s help to be courageous and resourceful in our love for others.
Then 3rd, there’s the Egyptian princess, the king’s daughter.
She saw this strange sight of an abandoned baby in a basket, she heard him crying, and she felt sorry for him. Even though she realized it was one of the Hebrew babies whom her father wanted rid of, she was ready to get involved, to do something to help. She paid for a nurse for the baby, and then later, she adopted the boy as her own son. So thanks to this young woman’s compassion for a child she could easily have regarded with contempt, Moses is not only rescued; he’s also adopted into the royal household.
Sometimes, you and I also are called upon to show costly ‘motherly’ love and compassion to those who aren’t our own children by birth. Maybe it will involve using our cash, cheque-book or credit card, or opening our home to someone... It will be practical and might well mean getting our hands dirty – maybe putting on our rubber gloves... God brings before us those whose burdens we can share, those whom we can help - whether financially or through other ways of showing active care and love.
Even though only one of them was his natural birth mother, all 3 of the characters in this story showed ‘motherly’ love, rescuing love to Moses. And we can learn from them that - sometimes this love involves letting go; sometimes it’s about being brave and resourceful; often it means helping to bear other people’s burdens and being compassionate and ready to get involved even when it costs us.
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“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God”. (2 Cor. 1: 3-4)
God rescues us from the dominion of darkness, from slavery to sin, from suffering like lost and lonely orphans. God adopts us into His kingdom as His own sons and daughters. God has compassion on us and comforts us.
That word ‘comfort’ has several dimensions. Yes, it has the aspect of mum making you a nice hot-water-bottle and settling you down with a blanket on the sofa when you are feeling rough. But it’s more than that; it also has something of the ‘wooden spoon’ about it – stirring things up, giving things a prod! Comfort is about encouragement, cheering you on to do your best, getting you off the sofa to live up to your potential, making you strong.
Like a good parent, God knows when we need rescuing from the mess and muddle we often get into. God knows what we need for our comfort, to make us strong, to cheer and encourage us. And as God does that for us – so we can do it for others.
You and I are individually precious and special to God; He loves us for the unique person that we are. But God also wants us to be part of His plans to show His rescuing love for others. So let’s remember that, whether or not we are mothers, we can all show this strong and comforting, encouraging and enabling love, this godly love, for one another.
Mary Barr
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