A Mother’s Day Message

In Luke 13, Jesus encounters a woman that was “bent over and could not fully straighten herself.” As I have been praying for the women of this church as Mother’s Day approaches, I am struck by the reality that many of us cannot fully straighten ourselves up under weights we were not meant to bear.

Perhaps you’re a mother, weighed down and bent over by worry.

Maybe you’re a mother bent by grief over a child lost—or a child far from God.

Maybe you’re a mother bent over a bassinet most of the night—your dream has come true but sleeplessness is real too. Joy and weariness are not mutually exclusive.

Maybe you’re a mother who misses that constant bending of early childhood. Maybe you’re wondering where to find your place in the world now that your children are grown.

Maybe you’re a woman worn down by years of longing for a child you do not have—may never have.

Maybe you’re missing the woman who raised you. Maybe she was never there in the way she should have been.

Maybe you find yourself bent over again in this season—caring for the mother who once cared for you.

I don’t know what bends you, but I know that in the good seasons and hard ones, we’ll break if we try to stand on our own.

Two-thousand years ago in a synagogue where Jesus saw a woman bent over, He called her to Himself!

In joy and celebration, grief and struggle, our highest call is the call to Jesus.

In Luke 13:12-13 we read, “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your disability.’ And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.”

And this is what strikes me about this passage:

First He called. In every season, He is calling you to Himself. I don’t know of anything more tender than a God who sees us and singles us out and calls us to His side.

Then, she came to Him. It tells us she had been bent over for 18 years. But somehow she shuffled her slumped self to Jesus. So whatever this season holds, I pray you will make your way to the One who calls.

Finally, He put His hands on her, and she was made straight. 

I want you to picture that—He placed His hands on her shoulders, and she stood up straight for the first time in 18 years. She would have found herself staring straight into the eyes of Jesus.

I don’t know what bends you over. But Jesus does. And He meets you right there. He calls you to Himself. He places His hands on your sagging shoulders. He straightens you to stand. 

He raises your gaze to meet His own.