Mother’s Day is celebrated in different ways, for different reasons, some of them religious, and at different times of the year in many parts of the world. Some of these have been observed for centuries. I will be dealing with Mother’s Day as it is celebrated in the United States, along with some Scriptural passages illustrating the nature and habits of godly women and mothers.
An American woman named Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) worked to establish a holiday celebrating mothers. Anna Jarvis’s efforts sprang from a desire to carry on the work that her mother Ann was doing in an effort to bring about such a holiday. Ann died in 1905, so Anna carried on her work. The first official observance of this day was on May 10, 1908, in a worship service at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, although as far back as the 1870’s and 1880’s there were limited observances held in the USA on behalf of mothers. West Virginia was the first state to officially declare Mother’s Day as a holiday, in 1910, with other states doing so over the next several years. It was at last signed into law nationally on May 9, 1914, by President Woodrow Wilson, the second Sunday in May being designated as Mother’s Day.
Churchgoing, family dinners, and the distributing of carnations are among the traditions included with Mother’s Day activities. Anna Jarvis chose the carnation as the official flower of Mother’s Day because it was her mother’s favorite flower. All carnations were supposed to be white, representing the purity of a mother’s love, but between a shortage of white carnations and the desire to sell more kinds of flowers, florists changed the tradition so that a pink carnation was to be worn if one’s mother was still living, or a white one if she had passed away. The greeting card industry saw the new holiday as something else they could capitalize on and began making Mother’s Day cards. Today it is one of the biggest sales holidays of the year for greeting cards, exceeded only by Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Anna Jarvis became increasingly disturbed by the commercialization of the holiday she so wanted for the honoring of mothers. In fact, later in her life she tried to have Mother’s Day rescinded, but those efforts ended when she was placed in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania due to declining health. True to her principles, Anna Jarvis did not profit from Mother’s Day. In fact, she died financially broke in November 1948. Ironically, it was people who were connected with the floral and greeting card industries who paid Anna’s bills so she would not be put out of the sanitarium.
Commercialization of every major holiday has been one of the inevitable outcomes of the love of money (1 Timothy 6:9-10). Still, we can buy cards or flowers in a sincere desire to honor our mothers. We as Christians live in a fallen world and cannot prevent much of what goes on in it, but we are not to be caught up in the ways of the world. Things we cannot redeem, such as yoga and heavy metal music, we should avoid. We can redeem not all, but most, holidays, and by honoring our mothers (and of course our fathers) we are being obedient to a Scriptural mandate:
Ephesians 6:1-3: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Honoring your mother goes beyond giving her cards and flowers, as you can see. Such gifts mean nothing if they are not backed up by tangible, beneficial actions for your mother. When we sincerely honor her we are, in a sense, being “doers of the word”:
James 1:22: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
One mother in the Bible we naturally think of is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She must have been a very godly woman to have been chosen by God to bring His only begotten Son into this world. Naturally Jesus treated her with love and honor. She, of course, was devoted to Him, standing by Him even as He was dying on the cross of Calvary. The Lord made sure she would be provided for after His death by having the disciple John (later the apostle John) care for her:
John 19:25-27: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
Another example of a mother in the Bible is Hannah. She was one of the two wives of a man named Elkanah. The other wife’s name was Peninnah. Elkanah loved Hannah much more than Peninnah, but Peninnah could bear children. Hannah could not. After much prayer and a vow to give (loan) the child to the Lord if He gave her a son, God blessed her with conception and she bore the powerful judge and prophet Samuel, the man who would one day anoint Saul as Israel’s first king and then, later, David as Saul’s replacement. Hannah kept her word, leaving Samuel with the priest Eli once the child was weaned. Her care for Samuel did not stop, however, and the Lord’s blessings upon her likewise continued:
1 Samuel 2:18-21: But Samuel ministered before the LORD, even as a child, wearing a linen ephod. Moreover his mother used to make him a little robe, and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “The LORD give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the LORD.” Then they would go to their own home. And the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile the child Samuel grew before the LORD.
Proverbs 31 deals with the topic of the virtuous or godly woman. The first nine verses are about the mother of a king named Lemuel and her advice to him. Though the father was intended by God to be the head of the household, both parents have the responsibility for raising godly children, and we see an example in this proverb with the woman advising her son Lemuel. We do not actually know who King Lemuel was, though some speculate that it may have been Solomon or Hezekiah. What matters is that his mother was wise and virtuous.
The rest of Proverbs 31 (verses 10 through 31) describe the character of a virtuous wife. Her high moral traits include the care for her household and the respect she commanded:
Proverbs 31:27-29: She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.”
God’s ideal is for people to know Him, being saved by Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit. That way, among many other things, these individuals will be good children who will love and obey their fathers and mothers and who, in turn, will be good parents someday. Sadly, most of the time this is not true. Many people are either not religious at all, and many of those who are, are involved in false religions. A number of people who profess to be Christians are casual or carnal, or may not even be saved at all in reality. The results can be bad. For those of you who have had bad mothers, my heart goes out to you.
My prayer is that you will heal enough to be able to forgive her. For those whose mothers are still living, be thankful for them. Do not just honor them on Mother’s Day, but love and treat them well always, and be glad they are still here. For those whose mothers have passed on, honor their memory if you can. If she was a bad mother, learn from her mistakes and don’t repeat them. If she was a good mother, thank God for her and follow her godly example. This Mother’s Day, whether you do a lot of celebrating or not, do something special whether it is for a mother who is living or in the memory of one who is no longer here. Even the commercialized cards and flowers are redeemable when given to your mother out of love and respect for her.
A mother’s role is challenging. She carries you for nine months, goes through the excruciating pain of childbirth, and helps to raise and, in many cases these days, provide for you. Dad is there for you and you should love him also, but who else will love you like your mom does? No one. Love her and respect her on Mother’s Day and every day.
