What is your view of royalty? What would be your ideal member of the royal family? Certainly the British royal family seems to continue to fascinate us. I noticed an article this week telling us that a “tsunami of royal reading is hitting the bookstores at an increasingly frenetic rate”.
https://www.abc.net.au/.../harry-meghan-queen.../101030906Why all this interest? What do we find so interesting about people in ceremonial positions? Certainly you can have sympathy for the Queen who tries to fulfil her duties as a mother on top of her royal responsibilities.
In John 10:22-30 the Jews, who are in Jerusalem to celebrate the freeing of the Temple from the Syrians in the Maccabean revolt 150 years earlier, ask Jesus to let them know plainly if he is the Messiah. Jesus uses the image of the Good Shepherd to illustrate what sort of king he is. The Shepherd for the Jews was someone who had to be committed 24/7 with the welfare of their sheep. They knew each of the sheep by name, protected them from wild animals and helped them when they got into trouble. The sheep recognised the voice of the shepherd and came when called. They had nothing to fear. Does that seem like a modern day member of the royal family or Prime Minister (or ex Prime Minister)?
This image reminds me of how most of us see our mothers, at least ideally. She was the person who was prepared to put herself out to care for me, feed me, tend my wounds. She was the person who believed in me, what I could achieve and gave me the courage and motivation to do that. She was there for me even when other people were not, without fail. When things went wrong she was the one who was there to tend my wounds.This is what we celebrate on Mothers Day. What most mothers have sacrificed to make us who we are.
Wouldn’t it be good if our political leaders were more like that - people who sacrifice themselves for us. People who had our best interests, rather than theirs, as their top priority? People who seek to help us as a community rather than seek power and control.
Mothers Day reminds us how the model of mother’s love is a pointer to the love of the Good Shepherd. As the old song says “Jesus loves us this we know”. This love was so great that Jesus gave his life for us. Isn’t that the motivation, like our mother’s love, to model that love with the people you meet? More than that because we have been loved so much we are able to be generous in our love for others.
If we think of Psalm 23 it reminds us of how we can rest in the abundance of the love mothers provide; the gentle guidance they can offer; the wise advice they give us; how they are there to comfort us in difficult times and times of grief; and the feasts we enjoy together in our families.
How much more when we think of the extravagant love of God, the true subject of that psalm.
How well this is captured by Anna Warner
Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.
Jesus loves me! He will stay
Close beside me all the way,
If I love Him when I die
He will take me home on high.