Yesterday, on Maundy Thursday, our choir sang a piece that has haunted me since.  It’s about Jesus, but through the lens of his mother, Mary.  The piece spans his life from birth to death, with Mary standing by to offer a mother’s comfort to her son at every juncture.

Each Lenten season we remember Jesus’ suffering, and since I’ve become a mother to a son, I’ve found God’s willingness to sacrifice  his own son that much more amazing.  As I watch my son grow and come to love him more with each day that passes, the idea of loving an entire people enough to give his precious body over to be broken for them … let’s just say my heart isn’t as big as God’s.  I couldn’t do it.  I look at the tender skin at the nape of his neck and I marvel at the scope of God’s love for us.  I couldn’t do it; not for anything.

But yesterday’s service reminded me that Jesus wasn’t just God’s son.  He was Mary’s son.  Mary bore him, raised him, and watched as he was abandoned by his disciples, tried before the Sanhedrin, and then stood at the foot of the cross and watched her beloved son’s hands and feet nailed to the wood.

Could you do it?  As a mother, could you stand there and watch soldiers nail your son (a grown man, but your son nonetheless) to a cross, then jeer as they tortured him with a crown of thorns and pierced his side with a spear?  Could you stand by and watch?

I couldn’t.

Let me share this music with you, because it speaks far more eloquently than I ever could.  Listen to the violin weep.  Hear the lullaby that echoes the ones you’d sing to your own babies.  Prepare yourself for the piano thundering its anger at the mention of Golgatha.  And through it all, imagine that you’re Mary, and that this is your memory, your son.

The piece is called Pietá, by Joseph M. Martin, and you can hear a beautiful rendition of it here.  Please go listen.

Are you crying yet?

Here, let me give you the lyrics:

 In the shadow of a manger,

by a candle’s dancing flame,

tender Mary holds her baby,

and she breathes His holy name.

“Jesus, rest your weary head,

close your weeping eyes.”

As evening falls, she starts to sing a lullaby.

“Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

In the shadow of the temple,

in a place so far from home,

Mary sees her child of wonder,

and she marvels how He’s grown.

“Jesus rest your weary head,

and think on gentle things.”

With loving arms she holds her Saviour and she sings,

“Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

In the shadow of Golgatha,

underneath a darkened sky,

Mary gently cradles Jesus,

Through her tears she says goodbye.

“Jesus, rest your weary head.

Your work on earth is done.”

And as the darkness falls, she whispers to her son,

“Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

This music pulls tears from me.  Mother’s tears, as it’s finally hit me just what God (and Jesus, and Mary) sacrificed.  Turn the painting a bit and the fuzzy parts become clear.  I always knew Jesus was a man, but to think of him as a mother thinks of her own son … well, that triggers a whole different set of instincts, and perhaps a whole new level of understanding.

The Good Friday service tonight included a hymn (O Sacred Head, Now Wounded) that summed it up perfectly for me in the last verse:

“What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,

for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?

O make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,

Lord let me never, never outlive my love to thee.”