Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Joy of Motherhood - John 16.21*

/Pastor Oesterwind/

May 10, 2009

 

*Introduction*:  Perhaps some of the ladies are able to resonate with what one mother described as the fantasy and reality of motherhood: 

 

/The Fantasy:/ As your little ones sit quietly at the kitchen table and hum along with Beethoven, they absorb their age-appropriate encyclopedias.

Meanwhile, you recreate the map of the U.S. using homemade sugar cookies.

Ahhh, you think to yourself.

This is what life's all about.

/The Reality:/ Your little darlings simultaneously shriek, “Mine!” as they rip the latest Bob the Builder coloring book in two.

Between loads of laundry, you smell smoke.

You rush to the kitchen to find the slice-and-bake cookies burning in the oven.

Fed up, you stand at the counter and remember the days when you thought you'd actually spend your life doing something worthwhile, like being a brain surgeon by day, and lawyer for the poor by night.

/Jill Eggleton Brett, "Help!

I'm Surrounded by Preschoolers," Christian Parenting Today (Summer 2004)/

 

Surely, if one is not careful, motherhood may seem like a thankless job.

The day to day battles that mothers face seem to overshadow the joy of fulfilling the role God has for them.

Jesus said in John 16:21 that “a woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”

I well understand the context of His statement.

The disciples were mystified over Jesus’ statement concerning His death and subsequent resurrection.

Jesus used the analogy of a pregnant woman giving birth, a very painful and intense process (especially in His day), to illustrate the pain that the disciples would experience at His absence (death).

The woman’s joy of holding a newborn after the birthing experience paralleled the joy in the hearts of the disciples at Jesus’ resurrection, a joy no one would take from them (v.

22).

Still, that analogy is effective because of the great truth it carries.

Biblical motherhood is punctuated with both sorrow and joy through life.

The deep, painful recesses of trial are left behind when one truly contemplates how important motherhood is.

The Christian mother is better able to handle the pain life brings because she has a foundation and clear directive from God’s Word with which she is able to fulfill the role God has given her.

Transition:  The Bible carefully reveals why the joy of mothering is so elusive in our world today.

It does so from the very beginning …in the book of beginnings - Genesis.

The Bible and Motherhood

 

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Genesis 4.1 records the first birth of a child named Cain.

He grew up to kill his younger brother Able.

Later in the same chapter we read that Cain’s line produces a man named Lamech who was a polygamist.

This man killed someone and followed up the deed with a pride-filled poem for one of his wives.

Cain as a precious babe held so much promise for Eve, but then the dark recesses emerged.

It ends in a depraved humanity that faces the judgment of a worldwide flood.

#.

The line of Adam unfolds in Genesis 5 and we encounter Noah.

He was the father of the /one/ family that escaped the destruction of the world through a flood due to humanity’s pursuit of evil.

However, Noah was not so pristine himself.

He became drunk and his son Ham uncovered his father’s nakedness and boasted about it to his brothers.

Noah cursed Ham and his line as a result.

#.

And so it goes… polygamy, lust, adultery, incest, and all sorts of evil once again corrupted humanity even after the flood.

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God called Abraham who serves as the embodiment of faith, but his family life had some problems as well.

Sarah manipulated Abraham in order to produce a child through an adulterous union with her handmaid Hagar - no matter the cultural norm of the day, this was still wrong.

Ishmael, the son of that union, competed with his half-brother Isaac and tore the family apart.

Something that still haunts us today in the Middle East.

#.

Isaac’s twin boys, Esau and Jacob, became bitter rivals.

The family suffered as a result, probably no one suffered more than Rebekah.

She lost both her sons when she interfered and prodded Jacob to deceive her husband Isaac.

She sent Jacob away to Haran with the question, “Why should I be bereaved also of you both in one day?”

While she kept a furious Esau from killing Jacob, she was in fact, bereaved of them both in a day.

#.

Jacob’s elder sons, as you know, would grow up to sell their younger brother Joseph into slavery and lie to their father about it.

#.

Every generation in Genesis had its share of family problems and yet God remained faithful.

It is wise for us to think about how this all began.

Why do families struggle the way they do?

Again, we turn to the beginning to understand…

*Genesis 3:16** *records God’s judgment leveled at Eve for eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:  “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire /shall be /for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Many debate the meaning of the statement, “your desire /shall be/ for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

*Genesis 4:7** *illuminates this passage with the same verb.

Here, God speaks to a self-pitying Cain:  “If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.

*/And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it./*”

* A comparison of these two verses is necessary.

In addition to increased pain during childbirth (this is what Jesus alludes to in John 16), the woman would bear the perpetual struggle between herself and her husband in the marriage relationship.

* Genesis 4 uses the identical words and grammar found in Genesis 3.  The desire of the woman in Genesis 3 is not a sexual or emotional desire for her husband.

It is a desire to usurp his headship in the home.

God is saying to Eve:  “Your desire shall be for your husband - his role, his position - but he shall rule over you.”

Sin’s desire to master us is parallel to the woman’s desire to master her husband.

She will seek to control him; compelled to do so by a curse, a curse brought upon herself through The Fall. 

* God adds that the husband would rule over his wife.

His rule would often be cruel and dictatorial.

Eve would attempt to control and usurp Adam and he would respond by imposing an authoritarian rule over her.

Adam would suppress Eve in a way God never intended for him to do so.

This is the nature of sin.

* This foundational curse is important to understand because it is alive and well today.

It rips homes apart and has done so since sin entered the world.

*Illustration*:  Fox News ran a story about a recent billboard advertisement for the law firm Fetman, Garland & Associates targeted young, wealthy, married couples of Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.

Its message was simple and tainted with the curse upon sinful man:  “Life's short.

Get a divorce.”

On either side of the words were sexually-charged images of a man and a woman.

A city leader had the billboard removed after just one week, citing a technical reason—the firm had not filed the proper paperwork with the city.

With its many bars, restaurants, and dance clubs, the Gold Coast is a popular party spot, making it a prime location for the law firm to broadcast its services.

In an interview, Corri Fetman said the sign “was supposed to be lighthearted … thought provoking … not boring like law firm advertising is.”

She insisted it was not created to trivialize marriage.

In her mind, the ad was “no different than any motivational book that says live your best life.”

Some agreed with the philosophy of the sign.

On an Internet news message board, one reader wrote: “I love it.

Kudos to the firm and the marketing idea!

As an attorney, I am not at all offended by this billboard.

Frankly, I find it refreshingly honest and insightful.

Hey, it's true—if people are unhappy, there are plenty of options out there—get a divorce and get on with your life.”

Another poster had an entirely different view: “For those that [think] this is clever or humorous, how about placing a 5-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy in the background, clutching daddy as he is leaving the house?”

Associated Press, "'Life's Short, Get a Divorce' Law Firm Ad Causes a Stir in Chicago Neighborhood," FoxNews.com

(5-4-07) and Jim Avila & Chris Francescani, "Billboard Jungle: Chicago Divorce Ad Comes Down," www.abcnews.com

(6~/1~/07); submitted by David Slagle, Atlanta, Georgia, and Brian Lowery, associate editor, PreachingToday.com

Indeed, that would send a more accurate message relaying the destruction divorce truly causes.

But we live in the day of blurring distinctions and roles in society.

It is a day of everyone doing that which is right in their own eyes.

The evidence of The Fall is all around us.

No evidence is more telling than the destructive fallout of the feminist movement…

 

 

 

*Illustrations of Feminism:*

 

/Listen to this Declaration of Feminism:/  “Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.