The Pascal celebrations give meaning to the whole life of Christ. It is because He died for our salvation that we can derive meaning from every other aspect of our life. It is because of the meaning of the Pascal Celebrations that this tragic, sad, traumatizing Friday became Good Friday.
It is a good story to tell, how Christ came and died and saved us from our own iniquities. That the ultimate meaning of His life was in death. It is all beautiful and rosy and we feel very special because while we were yet sinners, the son of man chose and accepted the will of His Heavenly Daddy to die or us. What did it feel like to be the mother of this Son of Man? Just because Christ was God did not make His mother Mary celebrate this Journey. She was not seeing the Good in the Friday.
She was blessed with this child, who from His entry into her womb brought a roller coaster of events into her life. She was almost abandoned by her spouse, she bore him in a manger, she had to flee from her country to keep her alive from being killed by Herod, she had to listen to him diminish and devalue her motherhood in front of people multitudes of people as He declared, “My mother is anyone who does the will of my father”. He got lost when He was 12 and their efforts to finding him were such an anti climax. And here comes the mother of all moments. He enters Jerusalem as a King. It must have been a moment of pride for her. “Look, that is my son”. She must have shed a tear, glorying in the celebrations, as everyone sang Hosanna and waved leaves and put clothes at the feet of the cold. Jubilation. Exhilaration. Pride. Happiness.
And then, he was betrayed by one of His disciples. He was arrested. He was tried, before Pilate, before Herod, then returned to Pilate who, seeing no fault in Him, had him flogged. But the accusers were not satisfied. The bayed for His blood. They wanted Him dead. They would rather a known criminal be freed than Christ, (the one who fed them, healed their sick, spoke to them about the kingdom of God and performed many good deeds in their presence), remain alive in their midst. They cried loudly, en masse, “crucify Him£. Pilate gave in. He told them to do with Him as they willed. He was mocked and spat on, he was crowned with thorns, He was given a heavy cross to carry, He carried it. He was undressed, his last dignity taken away from Him, His hands and feet nailed to the cross, then in lot’s of agony, bleeding, hanging, exhausted, thirsty, beaten, battered, bruised, He gave up His spirit to His father, and died.
His mother was a part of all this. Were women allowed to be part of trials in the days of the Roman empire, I don’t know, but if they weren’t, I am sure she kept tab of the happenings. She had how he was condemned to death. How he was beaten. How He carried a heavy cross. He even run into Him as he headed to Calvary, carrying the heavy cross. He watched Him die from a distance. We know she was present at the cross because Christ called out to her. “Woman, behold your son”.
I imagine the pain of betrayal of the people she called her own. Her neighbors, her friends, the people she went t church with as she listened to them cry for Jesus blood. Demanding for Him to be crucified. No one stood for His son. I imagine the feeling of anger and rage at His chosen twelve. One sold Him out. The others ran away. Peter denied ever knowing Him. How could they all leave Him like that? What happened to the friendship? Were they even friends in the first place? Imagine the brokenness when they met on the road to Calvary. Him carrying the cross, she looking helplessly, wishing she could take the pain upon herself. Imagine her watching them undress Him, drive nails through His palms and feet, raising the cross up high and leaving him to bleed to death. Imagine her receiving the dead Jesus on her arms, burying her beloved only son in a borrowed grave. Darkness. Death. Pain. Betrayal.
Pain and betrayal are feelings we identify with. Death and darkness are present with us every day. And we can question, how good the Friday was for Mary. She may or may not have been party to the Pascal Mystery. She may have known Christ was going to die so all humanity may live. She may have been aware of the will of God upon her beloved only son. That did not take away the pain of betrayal, the frustration in the happenings, the desire to just take the pain away from her son, even for a second, the grief of death and burial, the seeming end of life in death. She may have tried to understand resurrection when her son spoke about it. It didn’t take away the pain of watching her only son die.
Was there anything good about the Friday for her? No. This was the day her world shattered. This was the day she watched her son’s closest buddies sell him off, denounce him and abandon him to the fate of the masses. This was the day the people she knew, communed with, went to church with, went to the market with, bought goods and wares from demanded in loud voices that her son be killed. I can imagine members of her family too. This was the day she watched her son die a shameful, most painful death. This was the day she held her dead son in her arms. This was the day she buried her child. Her only child.
What kept her going? What motivated her to walk with Christ in these circumstances?
Love? Maybe. The love of a mother for her children is a great motivator. Psychologists say an empty core is a great motivator. But a core full of love, is a greater, probably the greatest motivator of all. She loved her son to death.
Faith? Maybe. She believed in the resurrection. She believed in the salvation story as her son had revealed to her. She believed her son. She believed He was doing the right thing. She believed He was doing the will of God the father. And she loved the son she believed in. And in this love, she could bear it all.
Hope? Maybe. She hoped that when all is over, something good will come out of it.
Many mothers will confess to the confusion of parenting, the self doubt of whether I am doing the right thing, the self questioning of whether they are doing enough, being enough. The crossroad of sacrifice between personal growth and commitment to presence in the children’s lives. It is a journey of constant decision making. It is a life of twenty four -seven commitment to the well being of the children. Emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual. Was Mary a mother in all human sense? Yes. Mary inspires us, in this difficult journey of good Friday to parent with Hope, faith and Love.
Mothering in Hope calls us to the awareness that there is something bigger to parenting. It reminds us on the purpose of creation. That while the children were in our wombs, God commissioned them to a life of Purpose. We parent in hope that that purpose shall come to pass. Will that purpose be a bliss? Christ’s purpose was to suffer and die for the salvation of many. It was a difficult purpose for both mother and child. But by grace they both embraced the purpose and lived it to the end. Hope helps us to live in quiet peace that something good comes out of our efforts. That we are participating in something bigger. We are a part of God’s purpose of creation.
Mothering in faith calls us to believe in God’s presence and constant participation in our parenting journey. We are co parents to He who parented our children first. When It gets tough, may we believe in He who first loved them.
Mothering in Love calls us to just love our children, the best way we know how. Physically, by ensuring they are always provided for, a home, a roof, clothes, caring for them when they are ill, correcting them with empathy and love, walking with them in their life adventures. Mothering in Love demands just our presence and our best in whatever status of physical, mental and emotional state we are in. Children perceive love from what they see us doing and being when we are with them. If they are reading love, what are they reading as love in everything that we do? Love is a great motivator. May we love them enough to manifest love to the generations of people they will ever come in contact with.
Pain, brokenness and betrayal and even death did not stop Mary from being a mother. May we remember this because, motherhood, in as much as it is a lovely, fulfilling and happy journey, might bring us to spaces of pain, brokenness, betrayal and even death. Death as we live, and death in death itself. May we remember to keep being a mother, even when being a mother is very very difficult.
Jesus came, suffered, died and was crucified. He rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven. The ascension of Christ is another blow to the disciples. The Resurrection brought hope back to them, because He whom they followed and fed them and healed the sick and had power over everything was back from the dead. They saw Him. They felt Him. Their joy was restored. No sooner had all this joy and peace and hope been restored than he ascended. He left them, this time round forever. The disorientation is back. The fear of tomorrow clouds them once more.
Many times we get to this point of disorientation. Especially in transition. Transition from one academic level to another, transition from one job to another, transition from one place to another, transition from one social status to another. We also get disoriented when things do not go the way we wanted them to. We want to start college or join high school, but just a few months before, we realize we are expectant, we get an interview to this job we desperately want, but someone else is appointed, through corrupt means, that grade we want to get so bad, that achievement at work, that award, that recognition, but it keeps elusive, that mega downfall that makes us feel we have failed, a broken family when we leave our spouses yet we know deep in our hearts we desperately wanted it to work, that boss that pushes you to the edge until you quit your job, not because you do not need it, but because you know fighting on will be in vain, that business that does not pick and three years later you know you have to close shop, many related moments. What to do? We go back to basics, but where is the energy to start all over? In which direction? In what manner? With What resources? We retreat to those cocoons that close us away from the world around us. Directionless.
When I meditate on these two mysteries, I think of the roles she played in the life of Jesus as a mother, and the role she played to the community as an advocate. As a mother, she walked by the side of Jesus to the last minute on the cross when he commended his life to God and breathed His last. As an advocate of the community, there are several cited occasions when she pleads for the cause of the community to Christ. 
Christ has been brought to Pilate. Pilate finds no fault, but he orders that he be flogged. How many times do we get flogged; emotionally by being accused falsely, characterwise when people we love speak evil of us behind our backs, when we are told we are not good enough, we are not beautiful enough, we do not know, we are foolish, we are ugly… physically when we stay in abusive relationships? How many times do we feel beaten by those who we cherish? How many times do we hear things about us and marvel at how creative people can be? Why do we relish thoughts of flogging others? Why do we derive joy in beating others? Shaming them? Belittling, assassinating their character? Denying them what they truly deserve? Looking down upon others? What value do we add to who we are when we lessen the value of others?
At our lowest, we discover we have very many enemies. Christ’s passion was His lowest moment. It came immediately after his triumphant entry. He was a King, now he was a nobody, being jeered and mocked and crowned with thorns in mockery. Everyone wants Him crucified. Where are those who dined with Him? Those who walked many miles to eat from his wisdom? Those who sung Hossana and paved His way with leaves as He entered Jerusalem? None of them spoke up for Him. We can identify with this very well. Look at this one, the way he could not talk to anyone when he had a job, he can’t even afford a decent pair of shoe, he has become so poor, he lives in the street, he used to drive a Mercedes S Class, now he walks to work, oh, she buys clothes at Muthurwa, and she used to wear designers, single mothers, childless women, single middle-aged women, pregnant young girls, broken families, broken dreams of people, broken people, … We have all been jeered at our lowest. We all have been abandoned. We all have been looked at with hate. People have celebrated at our downfall. We can really identify with Christ, or is it He can identify with us?
Christ had to carry His cross from the City of Jerusalem to the Mountain of Golgotha where He would be crucified on it. On the way, there were sympathetic women, there was Symon the Cyrene, there was Veronica, there were three falls, there was His mother, there were was one disciple, the one Christ loved the most. If we are to be identified with Christ, then we must walk his walk. He said we must carry our crosses and follow Him. Even when we know we will be crucified on it. We must persevere to build endurance, so the endurance builds character. On our way, we will fall, just as Christ fell, but we must rise and keep walking; we will meet our Symon of Cyrene, who will assist us in whichever way they are capable to carry our crosses, they will assist us financially, they will encourage us, they will hug us, they will try to make it bearable; we will find the sympathetic women who will cry with us, who will journey with us, if only for a short while, they will empathize, and wish us well on our way; we will find Veronica, who will wipe the tears off our faces, dust our clothes from our falls, help us make a few lasting memories which will take us through the agonizing time; we will have family and faithful friends who will literally walk every mile of our journey with us. Eventually we must come to Golgotha and here we must be crucified.
Tired, weary, hungry, thirsty, a trudging Christ gets to Golgotha. He is tripped off his only remaining dignity and he bleeds some more as the clothes come off with the dried blood from his wounds. He is laid on his tree, nails driven into his palms and feet, the tree is raised, he hangs in there for three more hours, finally in pain, desperation and all the energy he still has, He questions God; why oh why have you forsaken me? I was a good son, I have done your will, and I even requested you take this all away, why have you forsaken me? I did all you asked me to, I kept the Church pure by chasing those who profaned it, I brought you disciples, why have you forsaken me? I did good things, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and gave water to the thirsty, why have you forsaken me? How many times have we been here, when we question God for what we are going through? When Murphy’s Law has played a trick on us and we feel despaired and despondent? When we feel we do not have the energy to move on, when we have lost everything? Why has he forsaken us? “Unto your hands, I commend my Spirit… IT IS FINISHED”. They say it is at our lowest that we truly recognize the presence of Christ, because it is indeed here that we know we have done everything we could possibly do, but in the long run, it is here we learn the true meaning of Surrendering to the divine will of God. “Unto His hands, we commend ourselves”. We must surrender everything at the cross, we must unite our pains with those of Christ on the cross, we must crucify those weaknesses that keep us away from Him, and we must surrender everything here, at the cross, because it is at that cross that all is finished. Everything is purged. Once we surrender, then we can await the Resurrection, because it is coming. 