My Mother’s Death
When I think of my Mother, I think of her warm smile, her beautiful bright eyes, and generous heart. I also think of the conversation I wished I would have had with her. The wreck was just three days after her birthday. Her and my Father were coming to visit. I didn’t call her on her birthday. The last time I heard her voice was on my answering machine. She was letting us know they were coming to visit. I guess that was the last time I heard her voice while she was alive, sometimes I would call her phone just to her her ask me to leave a message. Maybe that is when I developed the habit of never leaving a message.
That day we received another phone call, it was a police officer letting us know that my father was being life flighted to flagstaff in critical condition. We found out later that the only people that really had that same injury were dead. It was a miracle that he was still alive and even more so that he survived. We called my mother to see if she knew anything about Dad. She didn’t answer. When you are in shock you don’t think clearly. We realized that Mom was with Dad. We learned that the Highway Patrol doesn’t notify of a death over the phone, they come in person. My Mother was gone.
I did a lot of soul searching. I turned to the scriptures often. I read the account of Jesus and Mary at the death of Lazarus many times. Mary, at the word of her sister Martha, went out to meet Jesus. As she saw Christ I imagine her thinking about what she would say, trying to hold back her sorrow as I would. Then as the rehearsed words came to her throat I can feel the knot and the flood of emotions as “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” spilled out as she collapsed at his feet.
I often did this with my wife. I would want to talk then as I did I couldn’t, I just cried as she held me, and she cried with me. Partially because she loved my mother, and partially because she loved me.
“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled … [and] Jesus Wept”
My Mother died in a car wreck with a drunk driver. During the time after her death I felt like Mary. I tried to be strong. As I turned to Christ my strength disappeared and all I could do was collapse and weep. As I prayed I felt Him give me strength. I felt Him weep with me just the same as he wept with Mary.
Why would Jesus, the Christ, the Savior, the Conqueror of Death and Sin weep with me over the death of my mother? With Mary over the death of Lazarus? His message was of life after death. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul writes, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So why then would Christ, the One by which we have victory of sin and death, weep?
This is why: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Jesus Christ, because of His great and pure love, morned and comforted those who needed comfort from Him. He wept precisely because I wept and he loves me.
There was once a dear friend of mine who was suffering from a malady and I prayed that I may feel what this friend felt that I may know how to comfort them, then I received an unexpected rebuke to my prayer. I felt the spirit whisper to me “do not try and take away that role from He who has suffered and knows the pains of all. Point your friend to Him, to Christ.” And that is what I did.
Jesus lives and can comfort us just as he did in Jerusalem before he was crucified. He Loves us. He is there to mourn with us and comfort us, if we, like Mary, run to him.