The Seven Last Words of Christ: The Third Word

“Woman, behold your son! … Behold your mother!”

John 19:26–27

The Crucifixion, Icon, 15th c., Andrei Rublev Museum Moscow

Lord Jesus, eternally begotten of the Father, you were formed in the womb of your mother to be his servant (Isa. 49:5).  You are the Word he speaks, and when you took on your mother’s flesh, you heard him say to you, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isa. 49:3).  Before the hour had come for you to be glorified, she knew you would provide wine at the wedding feast; your mother told the servants to do whatever you told them (Jn. 2:5), because she had already said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to you word” (Lk. 1:38, cf. 8:21).  She bore you in her womb and nursed you, and, although not even your brothers believed in you (Jn. 7:5), your mother followed you to the cross.  When your hour had come, and you were lifted up “to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel” (Isa. 49:6), she was standing near your cross.  She did not love her life, but followed you; where you were, there your servant was also (12:25–26).  Your mother received you, in whom is life, and you gave her power, through your Spirit, to become a child of God, to be “born from above” (Jn. 1:12; 3:3).  You call her, “Woman,” because, through you, she “has received a spirit of adoption” by which she cries, “‘Abba! Father!’,” bearing witness that she is a “joint heir” with you (Rom. 8:15–17).

Your mother did not come alone to stand near your cross; three other women—your “mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene”—were standing beside her, along with one man—the disciple whom you loved (Jn. 19:25–26).  Lord Christ, in your humble obedience, even on the cross, you did not look to your own interests, but to the interest of your mother and your beloved disciple (Phil. 2:4). You arranged that he should care for her as his mother, and take her into his own home (Jn. 19:27).  When you tell him, “Behold your mother!”, you reveal to him that your natural mother is his spiritual mother, because she is your first disciple.*  You are “in the bosom of the Father” (Jn. 1:18), and your beloved disciple reclined next to your heart at the supper in the Upper Room.  You make him, whose only relation to you is love, the son of your mother, who gave you her flesh.  Son of Mary, Son of God, you were lifted up from the earth “as a light to the nations” (Isa. 49:6) to draw all people to yourself (Jn. 12:32):

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.  (Rom. 11:33, 36)

* Cf. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, vol. II.