Woman, Behold, Your Son

John 19:25–27 ESV

but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

(pause)

As we have studied Jesus’ seven sayings from the Cross, we found the first two in the Gospel of Luke. Shortly after he was suspended in the air - or maybe even while he was being nailed to the cross - Jesus spoke words of forgiveness for all those who had a hand in condemning him to die.

This, of course, included the Romans - the soldiers nailing him to the cross and Pontius Pilate who gave the order - but also the Jews who had brought before the governor on trumped up charges. Yet we also recognize Jesus was speaking forgiveness to us all - for our sins were the reason why Jesus died on that old rugged tree.

The religious leaders heaped abuse on Jesus. The soldiers joined in on the fun. And the two thieves hung on crosses on either side of Jesus also cursed and reviled him. But then one recognized his plight, confessed his guilt and received Jesus’ promise of eternal life.

(pause)

For the third saying of Jesus on the Cross, we have now turned to the Gospel of John. John wrote this Gospel, of course, emphasizing the deity of Christ.

John 1:1–4 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John the Baptist testified that Jesus was the Christ by proclaiming…

John 1:29 ESV

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Throughout John’s gospel, he consistently pictured Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus turned water into wine and so illustrated how the Old Covenant run dry was being superseded by New Covenant established in his blood.

Jesus befuddled Nicodemus, the teacher of the Law, by explaining that life in God’s Kingdom requires us to be born again. For the Samaritan woman who approached the town well with regret and shame, he offered living water.

On and on we can go. Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Door, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the True Vine.

Jesus’ first two statements from the Cross are in full alignment with this picture of Jesus as the Son of God, even though we read them in the Gospel of Luke.

Jesus, King of Heaven, graciously offered forgiveness for those who had wronged him, and then pardoned the criminal as he humbly confessed his sin.

But now, we see a different picture of the Messiah as…

1. Jesus Recognized His Family (v. 26)

John 19:26 ESV

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”

(pause)

Can you imagine the pain and anguish Mary suffered that day as she watched her son hanging on the Cross?

Consider the pain and suffering Mary experienced for much of her life. When she was just a young girl - maybe as young as twelve or fifteen - an angel appeared to her and proclaimed that she had been chosen to bear the Messiah.

Mary didn’t quite understand how it was possible for her to be pregnant as a virgin, but she consented to God’s plan. As she sang the Magnificat, truly she was blessed among all women.

Yet, truly, she suffered. Joseph thought she had been immoral and planned to divorce her, until the angel assured him that this was God’s doing. But, as various scriptures indicate, the townspeople were unconvinced. Apparently, Mary was always regarded with suspicion.

In John 8-9, we see this most directly as Jesus debated with the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus told these people they were imprisoned by sin. They haughtily answered that Abraham was their father and they had never been enslaved.

Jesus said that if they were Abraham’s children, they would accept his teaching as the truth from God. Instead, they wanted to kill him, which showed they belonged to the devil. Jesus said…

John 8:41 ESV

You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”

Yes, Mary suffered - shame and humiliation from the people.

Years before this time, when Jesus was just twelve days old, Mary and Joseph had presented Jesus at the Temple. There they met an elderly man named Simeon. who said:

Luke 2:34–35 ESV

“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

Now, as Jesus hung on the cross, surely Mary must have felt like she had been stabbed with a Roman sword, the blade plunged up to the hilt!

(pause)

But watch as Jesus, Son of God, recognized his mother in the crowd before him. In the next few tender moments, we see Jesus, the Son of Man.

(pause)

“Woman, behold, your son!”

(pause)

Some in recent years have struggled with Jesus calling his mother “Woman.” It may sound a little disrespectful to us in English.

But in the Greek language and in that culture, this was not a term of disrespect. Indeed, we see Jesus consistently addressing women in the Gospels with this term - five different times.

The first time we read of Jesus calling a woman “Woman” was when he addressed his mother this way during the wedding feast recorded in John 2.

John 2:3–4 ESV

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

Again, Jesus’ answer to his mother may seem disrespectful to us, but Jesus did not intend it to be that way. Rather, Jesus was trying to express to his mother that he had come to earth to do His Father’s will.

His work was to preach and teach that the Kingdom of God had come to earth, not to rescue a bride and groom from embarrassment during their wedding feast.

“Yet even in that moment, Jesus still performed the miracle, revealing His glory and foreshadowing the new covenant He would bring.” (ChatGPT suggestion)

By addressing his mother as “Woman,” Jesus emphasized the fact that his Father is God. As Jesus also said at that time, his hour had not yet come.

This phrase is key as this statement is repeated several times during his ministry. Then, in his high priestly prayer shortly before he and the Eleven went to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed:

John 17:1 ESV

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.

Now on the Cross, Jesus, Son of God, again addressed Mary as “Woman… .”

(pause)

So we see Jesus in his glory as the Son of God, yet also as Mary’s son. Despite his suffering on that cruel cross, Jesus recognized Mary … and John … and acknowledged those who belonged to him.

In his following words, we then see how…

2. Jesus Provided for His Family (vv. 26–27)

John 19:26–27 ESV

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

One of the Ten Commandments - the 10 key principles by which the Jews were to live (and all God’s people, for that matter) - was the command to honor one’s parents.

Exodus 20:12 ESV

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

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.

Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Jn 19:27). InterVarsity Press.

It was common for those who were being crucified to settle affairs of their estates as they hung from the wooden beams. Jesus saw his mother and also “the disciple whom he loved” close by.

This cryptic description of “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, of course, is apparently the description John the Apostle gave for himself throughout this gospel.

(pause)

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”).

Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Jn 19:27). InterVarsity Press.

(pause)

Think about this. Here was Jesus, the Son of God, dying on the Cross, bearing the sin of the entire world on his shoulders. We can only imagine the pain, humiliation, and suffering Jesus felt.

Can you picture Jesus struggling for breath, pushing up against the nails in his feet and the searing pain he felt in his hands and feet?

(pause)

Here was the Lamb of God being sacrificed for the sin of the world!

(pause)

Yet Jesus took the time to provide for his mother as she grieved and was bereaved of her oldest son.

(pause)

Should not his example teach us the importance of providing and caring for our own families? The work we do in life, even if it is Christian ministry, is not so important that we have an excuse to abandon our responsibility to care for our family.

In the past, some in ministry believed that if they took care of God’s people, God would take care of their family. While their motive may have been good… living sacrificially for God, too many times this resulted in resentment in the family who felt abandoned.

Quite frankly, it is a challenge to keep the right balance in ministry between one’s work and one’s family. A better philosophy instead is that one’s family is one’s first line of ministry. Minister to your family first so that you can minister to others also.

(pause)

This truth is especially important for the one who is involved in full-time ministry, but it is also an important principle for every Christian to follow.

While one person might be tempted to allow ministry in the church to distract them from responsibilities to their family, another might allow work, making money, to become more important than spending time with family.

Then again, as we seek to provide for our family, we must seek their welfare in all matters - not only financially, emotionally, but also spiritually.

The call to provide and be there for one’s family should not be seen in exclusion to spiritual welfare. If we gain the whole world and lose our soul - or the souls of our family, what have we truly gained?

(pause)

While Jesus’ example on the Cross emphasizes the importance of providing for our family - that we must not allow our work, however important it is, to be an excuse not to fulfill our duty of loving, caring for and providing for our family - we also see another key truth in our scripture:

3. Jesus Redefined the Family (vv. 26–27)

John 19:26–27 ESV

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

In the gospels, we find multiple mentions of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. In Matthew 13:55-56 we learn the names of his three brothers: James, Joseph, and Judas. His sisters were not named.

Yes, some Christian traditions have tried to argue against the idea that Jesus had brothers and sisters as they try to put Mary on a pedestal above other humans.

The fact is, however, that Mary was as human as we were, but conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Later, she then had several children in her marriage to Joseph.

The fact that Jesus had siblings, however, raises some questions for us. First, why were Jesus’ brothers and sisters not at the cross when he died?

(pause)

John 7:3-5 tell us that Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him. Mark 3 tells us that his family tried to take custody of him at one point because they thought he was mentally unstable.

Bt, after Jesus rose from the dead, we learn that Jesus’ brothers were in the upper room praying with the apostles.

(pause)

Apparently, at this point when Jesus was on the cross, his family, other than his mother, did not believe in him. So Jesus, seeking for a suitable person to care for his mother, chose John, his beloved disciple.

As someone has written:

Jesus’ brothers were not there; they had been sceptical of Jesus and had probably remained in Capernaum. So Jesus commissioned John to care for Mary. In Christ’s greater family, the church, fellow believers may be more of a family to us than our blood relatives.

Barton, B. B. (1993). John (p. 379). Tyndale House.

Earlier, in Jesus’ ministry he emphasized this very point, that those who do the will of God are truly his family. In Matthew 12, Jesus asked the crowd who were his mother and brothers. He then answered his own question:

Matthew 12:50 ESV

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

(pause)

Isn’t this true?

(pause)

I can confidently say that most all of us are quite close to our respective families. Indeed, one of our church’s strengths is the closeness of several family groups that are part of congregation.

(pause)

But it is also true that when we as devoted followers of Jesus Christ have natural family members who reject God that, as much as we love them as our family, there is barrier to deeper fellowship.

(pause)

We are walking down different paths in life.

(pause)

We are headed to different destinations in eternity.

(pause)

Most of us are blessed in that much or most of our natural family members are also our spiritual family. But there are some Christians whose natural family does not love God.

(pause)

Sometimes, such Christians can feel awfully lonely, even abandoned. Consider the early Christians who first read this gospel of John.

Many of these Christians had been forsaken by their family. They may have had little resources to live on and very few options to go to live or for work.

But in Christ, a new family has been formed - the family of God. While there is something special about the bonds of our natural family, the ties that bind the family of God are even more incredible.

(pause)

It does not matter if I have never met a person before. It does not matter if they are from a country halfway around the world. It doesn’t matter the color of their skin or the language they speak. If they know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they are my brother, my sister, my family.

In Christ, I love them. I am responsible to care for them. If they have a need, a burden, Jesus calls me to share with them. We are the Family of God!

Jon Courson, a pastor who wrote a commentary on the Bible, has a beautiful quote regarding our scripture:

A family is formed at the Cross because that’s where true families are forged and held together.

Courson, J. (2003). Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (p. 589). Thomas Nelson.

This then forms the central idea we find from Jesus’ words on the Cross:

Big Idea: At the Cross, Jesus reveals the true family of God.

As we have gathered at the foot of the Cross one more time today to listen to Jesus speak to us, I hope your heart has been challenged by his beautiful example of love for his mother.

Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of man. Jesus cared deeply for his mother. It deeply pained him to see her grief at his death. Her ongoing welfare was important to him, even as he hung on the cross, bearing the weight of the sin of the world.

Jesus shows us a great example of what a responsible child will do for their parents, seeking someone he trusted to care for her in his absence.

Then, Jesus hinted at a wonderful truth we experience today - that whether we are surrounded by a large group of natural family or whether we are largely on our own - maybe due to distance or death or because others have rejected Christ - we still have a huge, loving family - the Family of God!

A young lady who had broken the grip of drug addiction both by medical help and new relationships in the church said, “I thank God every day for His forgiveness, and His mercy in delivering me from the habit that was killing me. And I also am grateful I finally have a family. I came from a broken home and never knew the love of a father or mother but you in the church have given me everything I missed.”

AMG Bible Illustrations. (2000). AMG Publishers.

(pause)

This is the blessing that we enjoy as followers of Jesus today - we are all part of the great Family of God!

We're members of God's family

When we accept His Son;

The Spirit gives us unity

And love for everyone.

— Hess

As we close this time of worship around the foot of the Cross, may we follow Jesus’ example as we seek to honor and provide for our natural family.

But, most of all, let us rejoice that we are part of an even greater Family - the Family of God! May Christ’s love draw us close. May Christ’s mission give us purpose. May Christ’s soon return give us hope!