"I also care"

“Dear Woman, here is your son!” and “Here is your mother!” – John 19:26-27

There is a tendency to dehumanize Jesus. We struggle thinking of Jesus a person like us with feelings, concerns, and thoughts. We sanitize Jesus so that we do not really have to take him too seriously. We want to make him more perfect than us so that we do not have to deal with him and his message. In this, Jesus becomes some distant figure who lives and dies long ago in a world strange to us. Jesus is represented by a pretty cross around our neck instead of a robust, masculine man whose life and death  condemns us for our pious religiosity.

Jesus, looking down from his execution, sees two people who are dearest to him, his mother, Mary, and his beloved disciple, John. He declares his last will and testament to them: “Mary, here is your son; John, here is your mother.” John records in his gospel that from that moment Mary spent the rest of her life with him.

In this Holy Week, hear Jesus say to you, “I care about you. I will give you those who will care for you.” – Ron Friesen