A
nursery-rhyme shall lead us. The nursery rhyme says:
"Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go."
The
imagery is so very crucial for Mother's Day, that we simply cannot ignore the
leading of the spirit to expand on it. We have the image of Mary, the innocent
virgin to whom the angel Gabriel came announcing her forthcoming pregnancy; we
have the declaration of John the Baptist, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"
We have the vulnerability of a tiny baby and the nurturing mother who must keep
all these things in her heart, including the statement by Simeon (Luke 2:35),
"... (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also)..."
And
further we read in Isaiah 53:1-3, 7-9:
Who has
believed what we have heard? And
to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at
him, and no beauty that we
should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.<
