Today is Mother’s Day. Hats off to all you moms out there. Mother’s day officially began with a proclamation by President Wilson in 1915. He set aside the second Sunday in May to honor moms. The day is celebrated at different times in virtually every country in the world.
It is interesting that Mother’s Day precedes our present celebration by many centuries. The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. Then during the 1600's, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday" on the 4th Sunday of Lent The poor were given the day off to spend with their mothers and a special cake, called the mothering cake, added a festive touch.
We have a special bond with our moms. They housed and nourished us for nine months.
They love, nurture, care for, protect, teach, provide, and lead. Their self-sacrifice is legendary. We followed them around, learned language from them and a sense of right and wrong.
Someone once remarked that since God couldn’t be everywhere, he made mothers.
While the theology of the phrase is not sound, it is fascinating how moms have the uncanny ability to track us. They seem to be better than bloodhounds at tracking and overseeing us. “Billy, I told you not to stop for candy after school, didn’t I?” “Frank, you’re too quiet in there. What mischief are you up to?” I don’t know how they do it, but they always seem to know where we are, what we are doing and if it’s OK.
Moms are so important that anything that nurtures or is intimately related to everyday life gets the title “mother”: Mother nature, mother tongue, mother earth, the mother lode, and so forth.
Raised in the Faith
As we look at our text for today, the Apostle Paul greets Timothy who is preparing for the work of the ministry. Timothy is younger than Paul. He is a very gifted individual with a strong faith and a good aptitude for doing the work of a pastor.
In verse 5 of our text we read, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”
Paul reminds Timothy that whatever he would become, be or do for the Lord, that he should remember the faith of his mother and grandmother. The Holy Spirit had worked through these women in raising Timothy in the one true faith.
Like so many people depicted in the Scriptures, we know very little about Timothy. It is interesting that his name means, “honoring God” probably reflecting the faith of his mother in naming him. He was a close companion of Paul for 17 years until the apostle’s death. Paul called him his “dear and faithful child in the Lord.” He died a martyr 30 years after Paul’s death. We know that he was shy and had many ailments (1 Tim. 5:23).
His mother Eunice and grandmother Lois were Jewish. His father was Greek and probably antagonistic to Christianity, but his influence is not covered in scripture.
At any rate, his Greek father would probably have forbidden any Jewish or Christian ceremony. Despite the odds against him Timothy was instructed by Eunice and Lois and became a faithful Christian and later an effective pastor.
Not much is known about either woman. This one verse in II Timothy is the only place they are mentioned in the Scriptures.
Lois had to be one incredible woman. She saw to it that her daughter Eunice had been brought up in the faith. And when Timothy was born, he had the resource of these two faithful women to instruct him.
God included this account in the Scriptures for two reasons: First of all, instruction in the faith has its roots in the home. The faith of a parent is reflected in the child. Proverbs 22, 5 states: “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Luther said: “Give me a child until he is 5 and he is mine forever.” What a sad commentary on our age that faith and Christian instruction are neglected even in so-called Christian homes.
Secondly, a child will reflect his parents’ faith and practice. If going to church is never a top priority, when other things are allowed to crowd out and replace God in their lives, when the faith isn’t lived out in the lives of those in the home, then you can almost bet that God won’t be top priority in the life of the child.
II Timothy 3, 14-15 we read: 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those (i.e. Eunice and Lois) from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
During his life, Timothy would have seen both sides of things: the pagan and the Christian world. Through his father, an unbelieving Greek, he would have seen the world which had been tainted by sin, lust and greed. He would have witnessed various evil influences, and what the life of an unbeliever was like. He also knew that sin had infected and influenced his own life.
But Timothy had two very faithful women through whom the Holy Spirit worked. They instructed Timothy in the Holy Scriptures, through which he learned about his Savior Jesus Christ. Even though his father was hardened in the ways of the world and had no use for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Timothy knew that Jesus was the answer to life’s questions and problems. He knew that as a sinful human being, he could come to his Savior in faith and know that he would find love and acceptance.
Timothy certainly wasn’t a perfect child. Notwithstanding Jesus, there hasn’t been a perfect child to have been born since mankind’s fall into sin. But the Scriptures, which taught him about Jesus, had made him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And this he knew from infancy, from the time he was a baby in arms, from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. From them he learned about God’s love and acceptance. This was a message he would share with the world in his ministry.
But the way taught him by his mother and grandmother was the way of faith, which made him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. This was the gift of God through the Holy Spirit.
The faith that Eunice and Lois shared with Timothy is that that we see reflected in the epistle for this day, Rev. 21. There, the church is described as the bride of the Lamb, Christ and as the holy city Jerusalem. We, together with Lois and Eunice and Timothy and all believers, alive and dead, make up that church. Like a mother it fosters us, leads us, protects us through the Lamb, Christ.
As the church, we share in the life of Christ. In it we are conceived by the Holy Ghost and are born of water and the Spirit. We are born through the “womb” of that mother Church. The baptismal font is symbolic of the fact that God in His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
That church preached by Paul and taught faithfully by Eunice and Lois, is adorned with children, true believers, by Christ, who “loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Like a hen gathering her chicks, Christ protects his church from her enemies and gathers the saints to safety: Listen to John 16:33, “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
By adorning our mother, we reflect God glory. We reflect Christ’s love. He sacrificed himself for us, his church. We share that sacrifice, because, Romans 6:4. 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If you look at the passage in Revelations it is clear that Christ’s earthly ministry reflects the glory of God. John 5:19-38.
We reflect God’s glory through the instruction from our mothers and teachers. : Daniel 12:3 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. Phil 2:15: 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.
That light that Eunice and Lois passed on to Timothy is the true glory of the world. It is the glory of the
resurrected Christ that shines in each and every on of us.
Conclusion A mother’s greatest adornment is to see her children faithfully follow in the paths of the redeemed. Like precious jewels, they reflect the glory of Christ and their children rereflect that wonder of salvation to their children. We all share in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His radiance shines upon us, this church, his bride, glorifying God before men, protecting us from the darkness and evil of God’s enemies, and making us a holy people in this world.
We shine as lights in this world, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9). In this way, we honor our mother, the Church, on this Mother’s Day.
And as mothers and grandmothers, may you also be reminded that what you say, what you do, and how you live your faith is a definite influence to your children and grand children. “Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up. 1 Corinthians 13:7
MOTHER’S DAY HYMN (tune Aurelia "The Church's One Foundation")
1. A Christian wife and mother, God’s gift from heav’n above. T
o members of her family, A source of constant love.
An help-meet for her husband In good and evil days;
A blessing to her children In e’er so many ways.
She looks with love and favor Upon her children
fair;
As precious gifts from heaven God gave into her
care.
With Christian admonition And nurture in the Lord;
She rears them well and wisely With Scripture’s full accord. - - John Mueller
The last verse of our text is applicable to mothers as well as all: T7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” That’s what it takes to raise faithful Christian children!
And now may the peace of our Lord be with you all throughout this day and throughout your lives as you reflect the glory of God! Amen.