Beyond Sunday: Here Is Your Mother

[Editor's note: Beyond Sunday is a Monday refresher to carry you through the week.]

Focus Verse of the Week

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27)

Commentary

Joseph being deceased, and Jesus now dying, there were no heirs, and probably no goods or estate, for the support and maintenance of his mother Mary. This, Christ at his last breath takes particular care of—and probably had made provision before. It is hardly conceivable that this was the first overture he had with John in this matter, but that he had obtained a promise from him, on his mother's behalf, some time before this. And hence perhaps that peculiar love he bore to him beyond all the rest.

Those words, “Woman, here is your son,” and on the other side to him, “Here is your mother,” seem no other than as if he had said, “This man, from the time that you are now deprived of your son, shall be like a son to your, and shall cherish and provide for him”: and so, vice versa, to his disciple John.

(Adapted from John Lightfoot’s A Commentary on the New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica.)

A Thought to Keep

Jesus calls us to love other Christians as our own family because we are a family in Him. Let His love guide your relationships.