Happy Mother's Day!!

The above image, “Greeting: Mary and Eve,” has been composed for a greeting card, by an unnamed sister at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, a monastic community of Trappistine nuns of the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance. *

 

 

Mark 3:31-35 (NASB)

 

Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

 

 

“As Mother's Day approaches, I invite you to consider the women in your life and the roles they play. No doubt, you will think of a few examples of strong, nurturing women.

 

Women were certainly important to Jesus in His time.

 

He took special notice of a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years when she touched His garment. (Mark 5:25-34)

 

When Jesus spoke about the "living water" of eternal life, the person He conversed with was a Samaritan woman drawing water at a well. (John 4:1-42)

 

Jesus' love for widows is also well known, as He demonstrated when He brought back a widow's son from the dead in the town of Nain. (Luke 7:11-17)

 

Christian women today are experiencing destructive forms of persecution that target them for their gender and for their faith. This can affect the resilience and survival of the Church as a whole, as women are cut off from their families, robbed of their hopes and dreams or unable to raise their children as Christians.

 

Yet in the midst of their suffering, God embraces them with His love and care. And I hope you will too.”

 

• Dr. David Curry, President/CEO, Open Doors USA

 

 

In the following sermon: Judges, Jephthah and Jesus, by David Murray, Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, which focuses on the story of Jephthah and his tragic vow. I’d rather like us to consider and commemorate the great faith exercised from the Christ-like, submissively loving heart of his unnamed daughter who willingly helped her father point others and us to Christ himself!!

 

Happy Mother’s Day!!

 

 

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This little painting, executed with what looks like watercolor and colored pencil, is all over the web and showing up in unexpected places. This image has generated controversy over it’s inappropriate cutesiness regarding a meeting that never did actually occur on earth and is inappropriately depicted if intended to convey an initial meeting in paradise – (the serpent wouldn’t be there, Mary wouldn’t be pregnant, and Eve wouldn’t have a reason to still be sad/ashamed).  The greatest point of controversy is over the idea that Mary is stepping on the head of the serpent, because it appears to either be contrary to the fact, or at least minimize the willing and sacrificial work of Jesus’ submissively reverent life and atoning death on Calvary’s cross in fulfilling the gospel message of Holy Scripture that was first shared by Our Creator himself in the early chapters of Genesis.  This is known as the protoevangelium, a word derived from two Greek words that mean “first” and gospel.”  Adding further fuel to the fire of this controversy is how Genesis 3:15 is translated. Most English translations have “he” yet other versions have it translated other ways.  Therefore, is it he, she, they or we who crush the serpent’s head? I’ll leave it for you to further ponder…….