What day in May can be more important than the 2nd Sunday? Mother’s Day. Now celebrated in 46 countries (although not necessarily in May) Mother’s Day is the day when we take some time to tell our mothers and the mothers of our children just how very special and important they are. Someone once said that nothing is new. Mother’s Day is not new either. Such a day was celebrated by the ancient Greeks and also by the ancients of Imperial Rome. For about 3000 years we have been trying to tell mothers how special they are. It has been popular, then not, then popular again. Such is the history of Mother’s Day. In 17th century England there was a day set aside as Mothering Sunday. All these celebrations also had flavour of praise for fertility rather than a strict show of appreciation for mothers. The Mother’s Day tradition that we know is just a little more than 100 years old. Julia Ward Howe of Georgia, who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, suggested such a day in 1872, but, while it generated some interest nobody really did anything about it. In 1905 Anna Jarvis of Spokane suggested having a special day for mothers. Some of the American states were celebrating it in 1911 and by 1914 the American president declared that the second Sunday of May would be Mother’s day, and it still is to this day
I love to read of the love of mothers as exhibited by Scripture. Jocahbed, Moses mother, floated him down the Nile rather than euthanize him as the law stated. An unnamed mother wouldn’t allow King Solomon to cut her child in half, she would give him up rather than see him killed. Rizpah saw King David slay her boys and hang them on the city wall. She kept a 5 month vigil chasing jackals and vultures away from the carcasses of her boys. The mother of the Apostles James and John, approached Jesus and asked for favours for her boys in the afterlife.
Mothers will do anything for their children. Bless them all, and honour them on Sunday the 8th and all other days.
I invite you to join us for Sunday services at 1030 at Dalemead Church
