'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Michelle Van Loon [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
Jesus gave us a litany of last words, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for Holy Week. Each day between now and Resurrection Sunday, seven friends will share their own stories to help us retrieve lament and to keep vigil with Jesus. Their stories have helped form my understanding of cruciform suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.
Each short story will be paired with an image, a Scripture passage, and a prayer. This year I’ve curated a series of contemporary icons from Ukrainian iconographers. As we hold space for each other’s stories, we take shelter under the outstretched arms of Christ for every story of suffering around the world. In order to lean toward the suffering in Ukraine, one of our storytellers is giving us the opportunity to send help to two organizations on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring friendly countries, and to receive a special thank you gift from Michelle Van Loon in return.
Would you read Michelle’s story with an open heart for any words Christ might be speaking to you?
Crucifixion, Ivanka Demchuk (b. 1990, Lviv, Ukraine) - Source
“So the soldiers did these things, 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.”
On the road to the cross, we open the door to true community
by Michelle Van Loon
When I was 15, I told my Jewish parents that I had become a Jesus follower, and my dad responded with a sentence that sliced through our relationship like a sword. “Don’t you ever talk to us about this again,” he said. I knew I could go to my parents to try to negotiate a raise in my allowance, or stretch my curfew an extra half hour, but my dad’s hurt, angry tone told me that there was no negotiating about this. It had taken me several months to work up the courage to have that conversation with my parents, because I knew that once I did, there would be no turning back. And there wasn’t. A door had slammed shut in our relationship.
Though my parents weren’t especially religious, their sense of Jewish identity was strong. I recognized that my parents had plenty of good reasons to feel betrayed by my announcement. A lot of terrible things have been done to the Jewish people in the name of Jesus during the last two thousand years. And my parents and grandparents had experienced some of those terrible things. They viewed me as a traitor to our people.
I was encouraged by stories of other people who’d suffered far worse than I had after coming to faith in Jesus, up to and including having their parents stage a faux funeral in order to show the world that this Christ-follower was no longer considered a member of the family. The disconnection I experienced with my own parents was nowhere near this dramatic. Instead, a state of uneasy truce settled over our household. We all stayed far away from any topic that might stir religious conflict. As a result, the three years before I left for college were hard, lonely ones for me, and likely for my parents as well. I found solace in the words of Jesus, who told his followers they could expect their faith in him to bring division in their families (Matthew 10:34-39). Jesus was telling would-be disciples that family must not take the place of preeminence in our lives that rightly belongs to God alone.
This pattern of Jesus’ followers being asked to choose God rather than being driven by family pressures and social norms was there from the very beginning of his earthly life. When Jesus’ mother Mary learned from an angelic visitor that she had been chosen to give birth to the Savior, her response was fully an expression of her desire to do God’s will: “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38) Mary’s yes to God closed a door on some things in her life. She must have experienced a sense of isolation her from family and friends throughout her seemingly scandalous pregnancy. Though her genetic family line was essential to God’s choice of her to bear his only begotten Son, it was her surrender to God’s will that opened the door to what would become a new family of faith being formed by Jesus.
With some of his final words on the way to the cross, Jesus showed us what this family of faith is meant to look like:
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)
Mary was likely widowed by this point, but Jesus was doing much more than simply making sure she wouldn’t become a homeless beggar. Instead, he was telling us all that this is how his family of faith is meant to function. Jesus’ forebear, King David, wrote, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” (Psalm 68:5-6) And that is precisely what Jesus was doing in that excruciating moment on his way to the cross when he created a new family by asking his beloved friend to open his door and share his life with his mother. This new community wasn’t created from shared bloodline, but from mutual surrender to the Father.
When I was free to attend church after I left home, I wasn’t looking for a replacement family. I loved my parents. But I’d lost much in my relationship with them. I longed to find a place of meaningful fellowship in a family of faith shaped by surrender to God. I believed it was possible. I still do, though my experience in the church over the last nearly five decades has sometimes reminded me more of the tense truce I experienced with my parents during my high school years –where the subjects that really matter seem to be off limits, where we all follow elaborately scripted social rules in an attempt to keep the peace, and where too many relationships that never go beyond the shallows. As a result, we live as lonely strangers instead of siblings in faith because the doors of our lives remain bolted shut.
But I’ve also seen what it looks like when true community is forged from shared surrender to God, and it has ruined me for ersatz versions. Compelled by the self-giving love of Jesus, it always looks just like one disciple opening the door to another to welcome them in fully and completely as family – because in him, that is what we are meant to be for one another.
Since coming to faith in Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement, Michelle's Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller's sensibilities have shaped her faith journey and informed her writing. She is the author of 7 books, including Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family History, Genetic Clues, and Generational Trauma and Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity. You can learn more about her writing and teaching ministry at http://www.michellevanloon.com.
The Third Word: “Woman, behold your son”... and to John: “Behold your mother.”
Read
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him…. Inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple…when the parents brought in the child Jesus….and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also….) [Luke 2: 25,27a,34-35a]
While Jesus was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the one who told him, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.” [Matthew 12:46-50)
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 near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” [John 19:25b-27a]
Pray
Jesus, the presence of your mother and your friends at the cross moves our hearts. We recognize that you are not only the Savior dying for the sins of the world. You are also a fully human man, a son with a mother and a man with a friend. Thank you for the good work that you were accomplishing throughout your entire life and even in the hours of your death, putting us together as a family, your church. May we live right now into your good work on the cross, loving and caring for one another as family, like you and your mother and your friend, and like Michelle and your Church. Please let the family of faith encircle her.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Amen.
Listen
Listen to Last Words - a playlist for our Holy Week Vigil
Give
For your donation of $25 or more, Michelle Van Loon will send you (or the person of your choice - U.S. addresses only) an autographed copy of her new book, Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family Ancestry, Genetic Clues, and Generational Trauma.
Any funds Michelle raises through this initiative will be divided between these two organizations who are both doing important work right this moment on the ground in the region.
If you would like to donate $25 or more and receive a signed copy of Translating Your Past as a thank you, click here to email Michelle with the name and mailing address of the person to whom you’d like her to send the book. In turn, she’ll send you her PayPal and/or Venmo information so you can send her your donation.
Click through the images below for more details.
