We are Family John 19:25-27
The words of Jesus to Mary and the beloved disciple were His third saying from the cross (the first one recorded by John). In the other Gospels Jesus had already given a respite to the Roman executioners (Luke 23:34) and a pardon to one thief (Luke 23:42–43).
19:25 The first part of this verse serves as a transitional comparison to the second part and as a consideration of the friends of Jesus. The soldiers were involved in their profiting from the victim’s few possessions. The friends, however, offer a significant contrast.
Jesus invites us to see ourselves in this familial community of compassion. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus identified all who do the will of his Father as his “brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:46–50). Only the gospel can create this kind of mutually devoted community.
19:25–26. The evidence is disputed as to whether relatives and close friends were allowed near crucifixions; they probably were. In either case, the soldiers supervising the execution would have looked the other way in practice if they had no reason to forbid it; the prerogatives of motherhood were highly respected in the ancient world. Because Jesus may not be elevated far above the ground, Jesus’ mother and disciple can hear him without being extremely close to the cross.
19:27. Jesus makes an oral testament in front of witnesses, which makes it binding, and formally places his mother under his disciple’s protection, providing for her after his death. Dying fathers could exhort sons to take care of surviving mothers (which they normally would do); for a disciple to be accorded a role in his teacher’s family was a great honor to the disciple (disciples sometimes called their teachers “father”).
A primary responsibility which Jewish custom included in “honoring one’s father and mother” was providing for them (cf. 1 Sam 22:3) in their old age. Jesus’ mother is probably in her mid to late forties, is probably a widow and lives in a society where women rarely earned much income; she is therefore officially especially dependent on her eldest son, Jesus, for support, although after his death her younger sons would support her.
19:28. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus may have recited the rest of Psalm 22 after the verse cited by Mark (15:34); in the light of Mark 15:35, this suggestion is not likely, but John could nonetheless allude here to the same psalm (Ps 22:15).
