Happy Mother’s Day. I used to think Mother’s Day was invented by the advertising industry to boost sales of greeting cards, flowers and the like. But the truth is happier.

Mother’s Day was conceived by Anna Jarvis to honor her own mother, who had rallied women to promote sanitation and public health in Appalachia in the Civil War era and afterwards. The first official celebration was in 1908 at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. Her campaign to make it a national holiday led to President Woodrow Wilson declaring the 2nd Sunday in May as Mother’s Day in 1914.

We all have Mothers, starting with the woman who brought each of us into the world. That may or may not be the same woman or women who have nurtured, blessed and guided us whether or not they were legally or technically a mother. And while we all have different experiences with our own mothers, adoptive mothers, step-mothers and mothering aunts, grandmothers and guardians, we share a general sense of what motherhood ought to be.

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Earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus told Nicodemus that, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16) “The world” means the fullness of the creation in its broken state. This hearkens to the very nature of God that John wrote in his first letter, “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and a few verses later, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

Love is central to the gospel and our very sense of being. When we speak of the unconditional love God has for his people, we affirm that no matter who we are, or what we’ve done, whatever our current station of life or even the ways we think or believe at the moment – or even whether or not we have the capacity to think or reason, God loves his people. And we trust God’s perfect mercy and judgment in all things including every person’s ultimate judgment. He’s always there for us.

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Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd.”

 That’s a beautiful phrase, so beautiful that the founders of this church made it our name.  I think about all the coloring books that we give to our kids in order to help them to understand Jesus, and quite often there he is with lambs in his arms. It may cause us to think about our Good Shepherd window up above our altar. Or you may prefer the Good Shepherd window above our chapel altar. It’s all very cuddly.

 Those are beautiful images that comfort our hearts, but it is a much deeper and weightier concept that demands our attention. It is one of seven great “I am” statements that John records Jesus saying.

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