This is a lightly edited transcript of what I actually said when I delivered this message at Spring Creek Bible Church on February 11, 2018, as part of The Seven Last Words of Christ series. It differs from what I planned to say; for the prepared text, see the manuscript.
Tonight we’re looking at the third word of Christ from the cross—often called the word of affection. Our text is John 19:25–27: “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.” Father, thank you for this glimpse into our Savior in his final hours. Accomplish your purposes in us through this text; show us more of our Savior, and cause us to respond in worship, devotion, and gratitude. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I’ll admit that when I was asked to speak on this text—having already spoken on the fourth and sixth words—I was a little disappointed; of all seven, this is the one I’d have picked last, since it seemed to lack the doctrinal weight of the others. But after weeks of study and meditation I’ve come to see a richness here I didn’t expect. We’ll look at three things: the context and setting, the event itself, and the purpose—why God put this in Scripture.
The Setting
First, the timing. Jesus was crucified at the third hour—9 a.m.—on a Friday, most likely April 7, AD 30, or April 3, AD 33. His time on the cross had three phases. From 9 a.m. to noon, before the darkness, he spoke the first three words: “Father, forgive them,” “Today you will be with me in paradise,” and our word tonight. At noon darkness fell over the land for three hours—when, I believe, God’s wrath in the form of abandonment reached its fullness, and Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Then at 3 p.m. the darkness lifted, and in fairly quick succession came the final three words: “I thirst,” “It is finished,” and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” So our text falls near the end of that first phase, somewhere between 9 a.m. and noon on Good Friday.
Second, the textual context—how this fits John’s account. Immediately before (vv. 23–24), the soldiers divide Jesus’ garments and cast lots for his seamless tunic. In Greek there’s a sharp contrast: “the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross…were” these godly women—on the one hand, greedy soldiers taking advantage of Jesus; on the other, women there in love, devotion, and sorrow. That’s typical of John, who throughout his Gospel sets before us two responses to Jesus: those who trust and love him, and those who reject him. And the following verse (v. 28) connects back to our text: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished…said, ‘I thirst.’” Interestingly, John omits the three hours of darkness—yet he links “all was now finished” to what just happened in verses 25–27. That word “finished” is the same one Jesus uses in “It is finished,” which suggests that Jesus’ care for his mother was an essential part of the cross-work he had to complete—not a haphazard detail, but part of his mission.
The Characters
At the center, of course, is Jesus—in intense pain: his face stinging from being slapped, his head throbbing from the thorns, his back raw from the flogging, his hands and feet pierced by nails that bore his weight, exposed and shamed before a crowd in a culture that prized modesty far more than ours, mocked by those who hated him, abandoned by many who claimed to love him, and knowing that God’s wrath still lay ahead. Then the women. The passage looks simple, but there’s real debate over how many women are named and who they are—two, three, or four—because in Greek John omits the conjunction “and” between the second and third. The most natural reading, I think, is four: a first pair of relatives Jesus doesn’t name (his mother and his mother’s sister), and a second pair from the spiritual family of God whom he does name (Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene)—which also fits John’s contrast with the four soldiers, and the parallels in Matthew and Mark.
We all know Mary, Jesus’ mother, prominent in the birth and childhood accounts but mentioned only in passing afterward—at the wedding in Cana, with the disciples in Acts 1:14, and alluded to in Galatians 4:4 (“born of woman”). Given how little Scripture and the early church say of her, it’s remarkable how large a role she plays in Roman Catholic theology. Mary’s sister, Jesus’ aunt, isn’t named elsewhere; some identify her with Salome (Mark) or the mother of Zebedee’s sons (Matthew), though Mark’s note that “many other women” were there (15:41) is a good caution against assuming every Gospel names the same few women—this was a six-hour event, and in John the women stand near the cross while in Matthew and Mark they watch from a distance. Mary the wife of Clopas is otherwise unknown (perhaps Mark’s “Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses”). And Mary Magdalene, first mentioned here in John, features prominently in the resurrection accounts; Luke 8 tells us she had been delivered of seven demons and helped support Jesus’ ministry. These women were there out of love and devotion, having followed Jesus and cared for his needs—some funding his ministry from their own means, some coming to anoint his body, some running with joy to report the resurrection. It’s worth noting that it’s the women, not the men, whom the Gospel writers highlight at the cross; anyone who says the Bible gives women no prominent place isn’t reading carefully. The last character is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”—John, the son of Zebedee, apostle and author of the Gospel, the three letters, and Revelation.
The Event
So here are the four women near the cross, and Jesus, looking down, sees his mother and the beloved disciple. To Mary he says, “Woman, behold your son.” To our ears “woman” can sound rude—try it with your mom, if you’re a teenage boy—which is why several modern translations render it “dear woman” or “dear lady”; it was a term of endearment and respect, the opposite of how it sounds today (Jesus used it of her at Cana in John 2 as well). He tells Mary to consider John as her son—John now assuming the role of provider and protector that Jesus had likely been filling in Joseph’s absence—and tells John to treat Mary as his own mother. Roman Catholic interpreters read this the opposite way, placing John (representing the church) under the care of Mary (the mother of the church)—but there’s no hint of that in the text; it reads later theology back into it. The responses make Jesus’ meaning clear: “from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (v. 27). John was to be the caregiver and provider; Mary, the recipient of his care. To his mother Jesus gave not responsibility but care; to John, not care but responsibility—making sure Mary would be provided for after he was gone.
Christ Our Example
Why did God move John—and only John—to record this? It’s easy to think this word carries less theological weight than the others, or that it merely shows Jesus’ humanity. But I don’t think that’s the point (in his divinity Jesus cares more deeply for human needs than we do in our humanity), and after meditating on it for months I’ve come to see a richer meaning—a threefold portrait of our Savior. First, Christ our example. In his final hours Jesus modeled obedience and righteousness, a perfect pattern for our sanctification—the second and last Adam showing us what true humanity looks like. Above all, he is honoring his heavenly Father, and John presents this care for his mother as one of the things that had to be finished as part of his mission (v. 28).
Second, he is honoring his mother—fulfilling the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5), which Jesus obeyed his whole life and taught to others (the rich young ruler, and the scribes and Pharisees whom he rebuked for failing to honor their parents). Note that Jesus is here in his early thirties. We usually teach “honor your parents” to children still under their parents’ care, but the rich young ruler and the Pharisees were adults, and so was Jesus—deliberately honoring his mother as an adult son. So while this certainly applies to those still living at home, its most direct application may be for those of us caring for parents in their final years. Do you have an aging mother or father in need of care? Might it be God’s will for you to be the provider? Third, his example in suffering. Jesus did all this in the midst of unimaginable physical, emotional, and mental agony—there was perhaps no harder time for him to remain sinless—and yet, even then, he was concerned for his mother and her far lesser suffering. Simeon had prophesied to Mary, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35), and it was being fulfilled as she watched her son—whom she knew as both son and Savior—crucified. Here we see Jesus counting others more significant than himself, looking not to his own interests but to others’ (Philippians 2), even in his greatest hour of suffering. What a compassionate Savior—may we relish his compassion and become more like him in it.
Christ Our Righteousness
Second in the portrait, easy to miss but critical: Christ our righteousness. Jesus wasn’t only setting an example of righteous living; he was becoming righteousness for us, keeping God’s commandments as our substitute to his final breath. We often think of the cross only in terms of Jesus’ passive obedience—and “passive” here doesn’t mean inactive; it comes from the word for suffering, his suffering obedience in fully absorbing God’s wrath as the penalty for our sin. The cross was surely about that. But we mustn’t miss his active obedience: even in this final hour he was keeping his Father’s commands, not merely to model how to live under suffering but to earn for us a perfect standing before God, since we will never perfectly obey—even apart from suffering. So Jesus was not only bearing the wrath due for every act of parent-dishonoring committed by all his people in every age; he was also perfectly fulfilling God’s requirement to honor one’s parents on our behalf—simultaneously bearing the penalty for our failures and earning the reward of obedience, so that God might be just in crediting to us a perfect keeping of the fifth commandment. Up to his last breath his Father’s will was at the forefront of all he did. What a Savior—who did not waver in fulfilling all God’s will, not only taking the penalty for our sin but earning for us that perfect standing of righteousness on which we rest.
Christ Our Brother
Third, Christ our brother—which speaks of our adoption into the family of God. Here’s why I see it in the text, rather than forcing it in. Have you ever wondered why Jesus commits Mary to John, and not to one of his four brothers, or his sisters, or (naturally) to Joseph? Tradition holds that Joseph had already died, which is why the responsibility for Mary had fallen to Jesus as the oldest son—and now, in his passing, he must ensure someone will care for her. But why not one of his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude (two of whom would write the epistles of James and Jude)? Because “not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7:5); they were unbelievers, and it’s not until Acts 1:14—where “his brothers” are gathered with the disciples in prayer—that we see they’d come to faith after the resurrection. So Jesus entrusts Mary not to an unbelieving brother but to John, making the point that the spiritual family of God takes primacy over physical family ties. That’s a theme throughout his teaching: when his mother and brothers wanted him, he said, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it”; “whoever did it to one of the least of these my brothers” (Matthew 25:40) means the family of God; and to the woman who blessed the mother who bore him, he replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11). After the resurrection he tells the women, “Go and tell my brothers”—meaning his disciples (Matthew 28:10)—and to Mary Magdalene, “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17; cf. Romans 8:29).
There’s a twofold application. First, as part of Jesus’ spiritual family, we receive the same compassionate care of the Savior that Mary did—a family relationship with Jesus deeper and stronger than any earthly bond. Second, we’re called to live as members of this family and provide for our brothers and sisters—for one of the ways Jesus cares for his people is through the body of Christ. As John Piper puts it, the new relationship between Mary and John “illustrates for us the provision made for us in the body of Christ….Loving obedience to the word of God puts us in a relationship to Jesus which is more intimate and more certain to be heard and helped than his nearest family relations.” We mustn’t neglect our physical family, as we’ve seen, but neither may we neglect our spiritual family, which is in some respects even more important. How are you doing at living as part of the family of believers? Who around you tonight might need your care and provision?
In conclusion, what a glorious Savior we have—our example, our righteousness, and our brother. Let us follow in his steps, rest in his merits, and live in his family. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for including this text for us, and for what it reveals about our Savior—setting Jesus before us as our perfect example in honoring our parents, as our perfect righteousness (since we’ll never do it perfectly), and teaching us the primacy of the spiritual family of God. Guide each of us to live more fully as brothers and sisters with one another and with our Savior. In Jesus’ name, amen.