Presence (Mother’s Day)
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · May 11, 2025 · The Promises of God series
On Mother's Day, Jeremy MacDonald traces the moments between Jesus and his mother Mary, from Cana to the cross, showing that Jesus sees us and promises his presence through the Holy Spirit so that we are never alone.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The The Promises of God series
Topics: Hope, Holy Spirit, Marriage & Family
Transcript
[0:01] The power of a praying woman. I've been the recipient of it. I know many of you have been too. Praying. Women have changed the world. They've changed my world. When I think back to my mom and the way that she would pray for me so diligently as I've grown up and as I have a family of my own now, I think about my wife and the way that she prays for our household, for our kids, for me so diligently. And as I ask for her prayers, it's so profound what God does through her. And the prayers of a praying woman, you know, have legitimately transformed and changed history. When you look throughout and find examples of like Corrie ten Boom, the way that she would talk about her mother and the spiritual life of her mother and the way that that shaped her, or Mother Teresa, whose faith was infused through her family legacy and history and what she was able to go on and to do, and even Billy Graham, you know, Billy Graham actually, spoke about in his biography about his mother.
[1:08] He wrote this, that every time my mother prayed with one of us, and every time my parents prayed for their sons and daughters, they were declaring their dependence on God for the wisdom and strength and courage to stay in control of life no matter what circumstances might bring. And then this church is built around the movement of the Wesleyans and John Wesley being somebody that we've appreciated his spiritual legacy. And although we don't have the exact place where he said or wrote this, it's commonly understood that he would articulate this, or at least something close to this, that I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England. And so on Mother's Day, I thought it would be interesting in light of the fact that the power of praying women has shaped and transformed history that we would look at the mother, the praying woman who prayed for God Himself, the mother of God Himself.
[2:05] Interestingly enough, Jesus had a mom. And we have her story in the Christian scriptures and we have interactions with Jesus and His earthly mother in this profound kind of way. And I find on Mother's Day just a really, in a, an incredible amount of encouragement from these passages. And as we're in the midst of this series, the promises of God, I think we get to discover an incredible promise from God through the interaction that Jesus had with Mary herself. And so here we are in week three of the series. You can feel free to catch up if you're watching online right now. You can feel free to go back. There's also, two weeks ago, just right after Easter, Pat Steeves brought us this incredible message of hope and how to find hope, how to embrace God.
[2:52] Last week we heard about the promise of healing. And this morning I want to introduce another promise that we have from God that we see exhibited in the life of Jesus with His mother Mary. Now in the Christian scriptures, we get all sorts of parts of Mary's story in the early section. So we hear about how she discovers and knows what God is gonna do through her pregnancy. We've got the interaction with her cousin. We have this incredible prophecy that's being fulfilled. We have her song, that's incredible. We have her interaction with Jesus as He gets, He's left, but also He's staying at the temple. I wanna look at the few encounters that Jesus has with His mom as an adult. And so the very first one that we have is in the Gospel of John. And a bit of a snapshot, this summer, our church together, we're gonna be going through the Gospel of John, in particular looking at the miracles that we see Jesus do.
[3:45] And this is one of them. So this is just a quick snapshot of what's coming up this summer. But in John 2, let's take a look, 'cause again, there's so much to, I think, learn from Jesus as He interacts with His mom. The next day in John 2:1-5, there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. And Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the celebration, to the wedding. And so there gathered around her. Of course, weddings in those days looked different than weddings in these days. We would anticipate that by the fact of it being 2000 years afterwards. And so in those days, and in some of these days too, there's the part of the celebration, the way that you celebrate is with wine. And so the wine supply, of which it was incredibly important for the family to provide for the celebration, the wine supply actually runs out during the festivities.
[4:32] And so Jesus' mother, Mary, told Him, "They have no more wine." So again, in this context, this is awful for the host family. This is a terrible kind of thing. And Mary tells Jesus, not just a matter of fact, but for an invitation for Him to do something about it, 'cause she knew who her son was. Mary, did you know? The answer is yes. She knew. She had faith and trust in who He was and what He was capable of as the Son of the living God. She would've been praying for Him so often, recognizing what God was gonna do through her son. And so Jesus' response maybe comes across as a little bit interesting. He says this: "Dear woman, that's not our problem."
[5:20] Which in some ways is really true. That's not what He had showed up to do or to fix or to solve or to participate. He was there to celebrate the couple. But He wasn't there to do something miraculous, but she knew He could. Now another translation, and maybe you have this if you have the English text in, the NIV almost comes across as a little bit disrespectful. This is what it sounds like. In the NIV it says, "Woman, why do you involve Me?" To which, if you ever give that note from your son, you've got some words back to him, I'm sure. But she wouldn't have needed to give those words back because in those days that, what He's articulating and what we have kind of written is actually this term of endearment, which is why in different translations, "Dear woman, there's something significant I'm about to do.
[6:06] But this isn't my time, this isn't my issue. There's something more that I'm about." And yet His mother, knowing His strength and His power, she invites Him into something. Jesus says, "My hour has not yet come," through the Gospel of John. The hour of Jesus. And what He was about to do is profound. And yet His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you," because she had faith, she had confidence in her son as being the Son of God. The next interaction is a little bit different. It comes in a couple of the other Gospel accounts. We'll read the one from Mark. And in this instance, Jesus' ministry has actually started. So His ministry started. He's preaching, He's communicating, He's gathering crowds around Him.
[6:52] And this is what happens. We read about in Mark chapter 3, Jesus' mother and His brothers came to see Him. and they stood outside and sent word for Him to come out and to talk with them. There was a crowd sitting around Jesus and someone said to Jesus, "Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you." So you can just picture it. Jesus has become a bit of a, of a, a popular, like, people are interested in what He has to say. And yet He still has this family, you know, His brothers, the people that He had grown up with, the people that He had broken bread with, His mom. And in the midst of this, as people are gathered around, they said, "Hey, your family is here." Jesus says, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?"
[7:38] And although it's not in the text, if you're a mom and you would hear something like this, I'm guessing Mary outside, having heard the words of Jesus, would've said, "Boy, your mother's the one that cleaned you up at 4:00 AM for so many years. Your dirty diapers, isn't that awful, terrible place with all the animals around us, the stable? Joseph couldn't find us a place to stay for the miraculous birth of the Son of God. That's who your mother is. Do you need me to remind you of it?" I'm guessing it's something she would've said just to the person next to her. Has anybody, 4:00 AM, anybody clean a dirty diaper? 4:00 AM last night. Anybody? We got a few. Okay, good. So you would understand the, maybe the visceral response that perhaps Mary had. I don't know. I don't wanna impose too much on the text, but this is what Jesus says.
[8:25] Now, the reason He says this is because He wants to bring forth an important truth to His followers. And it's actually a message that we can carry with us today, although it's not the main point I want us to take away from this morning's message. But He replies, "Who is my mother and my brothers?" He looked at those around Him and He said, "Look, these are my mother and my brothers," the people that were gathered around listening as He opened up the text, the people who had decided to follow after Him and discover what He might do for them and for their life and this direction as a teacher and a rabbi. He looks at the people gathered around and He says, "This is my family." In fact, to clarify, He says this, He says, "Anyone who does God's will is my brother and my sister and my mother." And the point He was making is that when you choose to follow after Jesus, you get adopted into God's family.
[9:16] And Jesus says that these are your siblings. And it's a profound kind of call for somebody even today to be able to say, if your situation is that you are left without a father and without a mother or without a family, that when you gather in this kind of place, if you choose to put your faith and trust in Jesus, you actually are adopted into this family and you receive this spiritual family that Jesus says is absolutely essential, that you're not alone, that you have family all around. And in those days, it was a hard teaching for Jesus' family. In fact, although we see His mother tag along with Him and her faith in Him continues, it's not the same for His siblings.
[10:04] You know, we get this example in John, John chapter 7, that even His brothers didn't believe in Him. And it kind of begs the question, you know, what would your brother need to do to convince you that He was the Son of God? I mean, maybe He tried to convince you at some point, but how much would you need to see in terms of miraculous things in order for your own siblings to convince you that He was divine? It's actually one of the most interesting things, I think, about the way that the New Testament came together after the fact. One of Jesus's brothers, James, post-resurrection, became a believer in his brother Jesus. And in fact became a leader in the early church and wrote a letter that we now have in our Christian canon.
[10:49] You can go ahead and read it and you'll discover the brother of Jesus turning his faith around and actually believing that his own brother was who He said He was. But he didn't always, but Mary always believed and trusted in her Son Jesus. And so then the last interaction, the last interaction that we have recorded in our Gospels with Mary, directly with her Son, Jesus, although she shows up again in the early church, John is the one that writes it. John would be able to write it probably because what we discover in this particular part of the text, John has the firsthand account from Mary because of what is about to happen. And this is at the crucifixion of Jesus: "Standing near the cross were Jesus' mother and his mother's sister, Mary, and Mary Magdalene."
[11:38] And when Jesus, and actually, you know, the interesting thing about the New Testament, and maybe if you haven't caught this before, the people that were with Jesus at the end, the people that were at the cross were the women. Where were all the guys, right? There were 12 of them. One of them surely, you know, was not gonna be there, Judas, but where's the other 11? The majority of them run terrified. But it's the women, the women who bear witness to what Jesus went through. It was the women who showed up at the tomb. It was the women that were the witnesses to the resurrected Jesus. And you need to hear this because I think for some people there's a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of what God does through His Scriptures.
[12:29] But for 2000 years, you have to know Jesus has been elevating the status and the understanding of women in our midst and in our culture. He's been the most important voice in reshaping people's understanding. Because in the first century, if you wanted to make up an interesting story about a God and convince people to follow after you, you would not use women as your witnesses. Because in the first century, they wouldn't be counted as reasonable witnesses. They didn't count, but they were there. And it's true. And their faith is marked throughout our Scriptures. The women led the way and the women were at the cross and the women were standing there. And when Jesus saw His mother standing there beside the disciple whom He loved, which is John, I don't know John.
[13:19] I mean, if you're gonna write yourself into the text, constantly qualifying yourself as the disciple that Jesus loves seems a bit much. But the truth is that this is the nature of the story. John, who's writing this, is the disciple Jesus loved. He's there with Mary, the mother of Jesus. And He says to His mother, Jesus says to His mother, He's on the cross. He's carrying the weight of the world, the sins of the world. The incredible things that are happening in that midst is He experiences the pain, not just of the crucifixion, but the weight of your sin and my sin. And in the midst of all of that, He sees His mother and He says, "Dear woman, here is your son." Not referencing Himself, but referencing the man that was sitting next to, next to her, referencing John. Because if there was no brothers of Jesus that trusted and were faithful and following after Him, Mary was alone.
[14:11] And as she watched her son die on the cross, she would become even more alone. And as the other disciples had scattered, here is one who, in that culture, you would need someone in order to care for and look out for and bring you alongside so that you would not be troubled. Here is your son. And then He looks to this disciple, here is your mother. And from then on, this disciple took her into his home and to look after her as his own mother, that Jesus' interaction with His mom was in the most difficult and painful moment, that He cared for her and He looked out for her.
[15:01] He sacrificed for her as well as all of us. He made sure that she, that Mary, in the most important need of her life, that Mary was not alone. And what we can take from this story, knowing that Jesus made sure that His own mother was not alone. We can reference throughout the story of Jesus and realize that when you're sitting here today, no matter where you are in our faith journey, you can be here and believe none of this kind of stuff. You can be here and have all sorts of doubts. You can be here and be thinking, I'm the craziest person to be able to open the Scriptures and think that there's truth in them. But you need to know that no matter what your circumstances are, no matter what you feel and experience about faith, you, just like Mary, are not alone.
[15:53] That is the loneliness. Epidemic has creeped into our culture. And people constantly are feeling, and maybe this is your story, like you go home and it's like nobody understands and nobody knows the pain and nobody knows the dysfunction and nobody knows the trauma of your experience. But just as Jesus on the cross could look at His own mother and make sure that she was looked after, He looked through history and He looked at you and He looked at me and He made sure that you and I would not be alone. And I can say that with confidence because of the words of Jesus.
[16:38] Just the night before He would die, He gathered with His disciples and they didn't fully understand or comprehend what was about to happen. But as He gathered with His disciples and He knew that He was about to depart from this earth, He clarified something important for each and every one of us. And for those of you that are far from faith, this could be the thing or should be the thing that would inspire and maybe even spark you to consider faith in Jesus as something worth aligning yourself with. And for any of us that have chosen Christ as our King and have lived a life trying to fall after Jesus, this truth is so profound. When Jesus has gathered with His closest disciples in John 14, we read this, Him explaining, trying to give a picture of what was about to come.
[17:25] He replies to all of them. It's a long narrative. You should take a look and read it all. But He says, all who love Me will do what I say, which is interesting even in and of itself, 'cause sometimes you've wondered about faith and wondered, oh man, I'm so messed up, right? Like I can't pull it off. I can't stick to my own diet. I can't stick to my own commitments to myself, let alone somebody else's rules or morality that they might impose on me. But Jesus clarifies in this passage, no, no, no, we know this. The love for Jesus is what starts the process. Love for Jesus is what we pursue and look after. And then because of that, He actually empowers us to do the things that He will call us to do.
[18:12] So when we feel like we can't do what Jesus has called us to do, it's a reminder that of course we can't. We need His power. We need to focus on our love for Him first, and that is what will change and give us the ability to do what He's asked us to do. He says, My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. We will come and make our home with each of them. For so much of the world's history, the gods have been so far from people, people have felt like they had to figure out and practice something and try to measure up to some standards so that the gods would not be angry. And yet here is Jesus, God incarnate, saying, no, no, no, no, no, we want to come and to make our home with you.
[19:02] We want you to experience the presence of God. You can actually, instead of striving to reach some type of high heaven, you can accept and receive the profound presence of God in your life today. Anyone who doesn't love Me will not obey Me. And so for lots of people, the love of Jesus is not something they chase after. And because of that, you can't measure up, you can't do the things. You can't become the person that you are meant to be. You can't become the person you are created to be. But it starts with this love for Jesus. But He goes on, He says, remember, My words are not My own.
[19:47] What I'm telling you is from the Father who sent, I'm telling you these things now while I am still with you. He of course knew that just in a few hours everything would be upended for His disciples. But He says, when the Father, your heavenly Father, sends the advocate as My representative, that is the Holy Spirit. And there's part of the Christian faith that there's God the Father, that there's Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together, the Trinity God, three in one. But that today we experience God's presence through the Holy Spirit is absolutely profound. And the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of everything that I have told you.
[20:34] And so Jesus to His disciples, trying to give them a picture of what was to come, when they would receive His presence in the most personal and the most profound kind of way, that today, 2000 years later, when we receive the presence of God, He says, I am leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give as a gift, the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid. Are you here today, troubled and afraid? Do you know somebody who is troubled and afraid? Do you know somebody that could use the peace of God? And so we know from Jesus' own words, from this narrative, from John hearing Jesus talk about it, writing it down, passing it along to people after the resurrection, make sure they know that God actually promises His presence.
[21:36] That you have the promise of God's presence Himself. And that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here in our midst. It's in the hearts of anybody that follows after God. He's in the world of anybody that chooses to put their faith and their trust into Him. And understanding that the same power that raises Jesus from the dead is actually the power that sits in the seat of anybody that chooses to follow Him. Should spark all of us to say, yeah, But am I really seeing that power in my life? Like, have I blocked? And this has been my question, my prayer even, over this last year for me personally. So if we don't know each other, I'm, I've been a professional Christian my whole working career.
[22:21] I went to Bible college to be a pastor. My name's Jeremy. It's nice to meet you. And I grew up at this church. I came back, was a pastor here for a while. I pastored in other places, came back. I've been a professional Christian my whole life. This last year though, I've wondered this promise of the Holy Spirit. Have I blocked or missed it? Has God been speaking and trying to move in my life? And I've been resistant to it. It's just something I've been personally wrestling with. I'm not putting this on you, but when I was in Bible college, I studied this text. And John, I read the people wrestling through this text. In fact, one of the most important, I think, commentators these days on this particular text, Gary Burge, his name, he wrote this about the Holy Spirit, and I've been wrestling with this.
[23:08] He says, to receive Jesus, you know, to have Jesus in your heart, which is what my experience was growing up, pray and receive Jesus in your heart. Maybe that's been what you've heard as well, is to experience the Spirit of God dwelling within. It's actually something profound. It's not just this decision where you check that box, and I have Jesus in my heart. Yes, you do. Pause. How profound is that, that the Spirit of God is in you? And so what Gary was saying from this text, what Jesus was communicating to His disciples, knowing what was about to come, is that in the world, Christians in the first century were reproducing not merely the work of Jesus, but they were continuing the presence of Jesus in the world.
[24:02] That when our world today says, where is God in the midst of all this suffering, where is God in the hope, in the midst of all of what I'm going through, God whispers to every Christian and says, you're right there. I've put you there to be a representative, to bring My presence onto that street, to bring My presence into that workplace, to bring My presence into the lives of your children, to bring My presence into the places. This is how God works, how the Spirit moves through the people who have chosen to follow Him and to have the Spirit, Gary writes, is to have the catalog of gifts listed in this chapter, powerful works, effective prayer, and the peace of God.
[24:49] And so I just wonder sometimes, have I paused it? Have I pushed back too much on my own journey? Am I willing for the Spirit of God to be at work in my life? And I wonder, maybe even on a Mother's Day like today, if maybe we would be just a little bit more open to what the Spirit of God might be willing to do in your life, in the lives of the people around you, what He might be prompting you to do. And maybe for some of you, it's a prompting to show up and to actually put your trust in Him. Maybe you've had dreams of this Jesus, and you don't actually know what you're meant to do with them. And yet here you are trying to discern what the Spirit of God might be saying to you. Maybe you've been following Jesus for decades and He's saying you're not done yet.
[25:39] The Spirit is at work. You know, 45 years ago on Mother's Day, there was a church in California who had a guest speaker come, I think it was a Sunday night service. And at the end of, after preaching, he just prayed this simple prayer that is actually a long-term prayer of the church, of the Christian Church throughout the centuries. Simple prayer, just, come, Holy Spirit. And I think the interesting thing about the prayer is it just postures us people with the expectation that the Spirit of God might be wanting to work. This is Mother's Day. 45 years ago, profound experience in that congregation. The pastor of the church, actually, seven or eight years later would, end up being able to travel.
[26:28] And he was preaching at a church, at an Anglican church in, London, England. And doing much the same. He got to the end of the message and he just invited people to pray this very simple, this ancient prayer, come, Holy Spirit. And in the front row there's a guy in a three-piece suit. He's a barrister, which is British for lawyer, I think, his name was Nicky. And he has this, just this profound experience and invitation from the Holy Spirit. And from that moment for Nicky, he had this calling and this opportunity to lead a movement, which wasn't really much of a movement in the moment, but became what we now know as the Alpha Course.
[27:14] Some of you have seen the Alpha Course, or you've heard of it. It's answering life speak questions through the lens of our Scriptures. Really profound. And, and over the last number of years, the Alpha Course has told the story of Jesus to millions of people all around the world. Just this last week, I was very fortunate to be able to be at the Alpha Conference held and hosted in London, my first time over there. It was really cool. But there's this profound moment as Nicky and his wife Pippa are gathered in the Royal Albert Hall with four to 5,000 Christians, church leaders from all around the world, 82 countries represented, telling the story of how God is at work in our world today.
[28:07] And they just said, would we pray that same prayer and in this historic building to stand on the edge and to see four to 5,000 people standing with their hands open, just saying, come, Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come. In my life, in our church's life, the people around us, this is what it looked like. This is from my seat in the Royal Albert Hall. Thousands of people with that prayer. And so I would just invite us here, Mother's Day, 45 years after the spark, perhaps that led to this moment.
[28:55] Would we pray the same prayer? Would you pray the same prayer with the expectation and the perhaps curiosity of what God might say to you again, no matter where your faith is at, but perhaps the presence of God, which is as real today as it was 2000 years ago, would want to speak to the hearts of His people and those that might become His people. So would you stand with me right now? It's a very simple prayer. You might just, as a sign of openness, you might just open up your hands in this kind of way. You might close your eyes to avoid distraction.
[29:40] The song that we're gonna sing in a few moments is gonna reiterate these words, but I would wonder if we would just rest in this moment and for a moment, be silent before God that He might speak, and that whether you want to say it out loud or in your mind or in your heart, that you would just pray, come, Holy Spirit.