On my best mom days, I like to believe I mirror unconditional love and acceptance because my desire is to nurture and cultivate in my kids “malchut”, or dignity.  I want them to know their inherent value, that they are indispensable for the very fact they are created in the divine image.  I believe if our kids know their identity then no set back, trouble, mistake, failure could truly shake them or cause them to question the true source of their value…Jesus.

But, as life on Earth deems it, my image is flawed, imperfect and incomplete, and I cannot and do not always reflect Jesus well.

So, my questions of myself, on how to love well, to reflect better, leaves me grappling looking for a female, a mom, a wife in the Bible that I can learn from.

I am convinced and unshaken that,

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  Ephesians 4:4-6 NIV

“At that time,” declares the Lord , “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”  Jeremiah 31:1 NIV

My question then comes,

So, is there the role of a mother in this Body, and if so, what is that role in how it compares to what I am doing, and what character could I look at in the Bible that at least tried to walk it out?

To research this, I began with Jesus’ own question:

Jesus, asked, Who are my mother and my brothers?

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”   “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

Whoever Does God’s Will is My Brother and Sister and Mother.”       Mark 3:31-35 NIV

God’s will and purpose is that all persons would be reconciled back to Himself.  So, individuals seeking to help reconcile others to God are serving as Jesus’ brothers, sisters, and mother out of obedience to Father God’s will and purpose.

And God purposed that through (by the service, the intervention of) Him [the Son] all things should be completely reconciled back to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven, as through Him, [the Father] made peace by means of the blood of His cross. Him we preach and proclaim, warning and admonishing everyone and instructing everyone in all wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God), that we may present every person mature (full-grown, fully initiated, complete, and perfect) in Christ (the Anointed One). For this I labor [unto weariness], striving with all the superhuman energy which He so mightily enkindles and works within me.  Colossians 1:20, 28-29 AMPC

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  2 Corinthians 5:18-19 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  Romans 12:1 NIV

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Galatians 2:20 NIV

Ok, so, what the above is saying, is that when we accept Jesus as God’s son His Kingdom becomes paramount, and our goals become about building His family, that all might know Him.  You become a mother, brother, sister to those in the faith, all this hoping that your earthly family also believes or will come to believe.

Even from the start, in the Old Testament, you can see the foreshadowing of the coming Christ and the Church acting as a mother to nurture and cultivate children in the faith.

So, who, what mom in the Bible, did this well as a mother, and how specifically?

In the Old Testament, Rachel, one of Jacob’s wives, is considered the mother of Israel, the mother of all souls.

Rachel, struggled to deliver her second son, Benjamin, and died during childbirth while traveling near Bethlehem.  Jacob buried her in Ramah, along the road to Bethlehem.

As I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem). Genesis 48:7 NIV

The Tonya, a Hasidic philosophy book written in 1797 by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, records that,

Later, Jacob, when on his own death bed, said to his sons, … “and I did not even take her to Bethlehem to bring her to [a settled place in] the Land. I know that there is resentment in your heart toward me [over this]. But know that it was by divine command that I buried her there, so that she should be a help for her children when Nebuzaradan [of Babylon] will exile them and they will pass by there. Then Rachel will come out upon her grave and weep and plead for mercy for them.”

Jacob’s weeping Rachel prophecy was referred to by the prophet Jeremiah,

This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”  Jeremiah 31:15

Matthew adds to this prophecy further in chapter  2:16-18, saying the prophecy was also fulfilled,

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:  “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”  Matthew 2:16-18 NIV

So, how is Jesus’s birth and the danger surrounding His birth a fulfillment of the weeping Rachel prophecy too, and what significance does this have for mothers?

In Jeremiah 31, we read that G‑d  responded to Rachael’s cries for her descendants and their future oppression out of His tenderheartedness and kindness, promising her:

Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations, and declare it in the isles and coastlands far away, and say, He Who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.

Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work will be rewarded, says G‑d, and they will return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future … that your children will return to their own borders”.  But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the Lord, I will put My law within them, and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. And they will no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me [recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Me], from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more. [Heb. 8:8-12; 10:16, 17.] Jeremiah 31:10, 16, 33-34 AMPC

All of this promise of a new covenant, stemming from God’s compassion, His compassion, toward the tears of a mother, toward her future exiled descendants/children.

Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a darling child and beloved? For as often as I speak against him, I do [earnestly] remember him still. Therefore My affection is stirred and My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy, pity, and loving-kindness for him, says the Lord. Set up for yourselves highway markers [back to Canaan], make for yourselves guideposts; turn your thoughts and attention to the way by which you went [into exile]. Retrace your steps, O Virgin Israel, return to these your cities. How long will you waver and hesitate [to return], O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the land [of Israel]: a female shall compass (woo, win, and protect) a man.  Jeremiah 31:20-22 AMPC

Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness [place of exile]–when Israel sought to find rest.  Jeremiah 31:2

The implication across this prophecy for mothers as we see “Rachel” weep for her future exiled and oppressed descendants/children, the Israelites, including the Innocents murdered by Herod at Jesus’ birth, is that “mothers” bare witness to the hope of Jesus and intercede for wandering and/or exiled children, praying that they would just come, or return/be returned to their land and to their Father God’s favor.   For, as long as children wander, and/or are oppressed, mothers do not rest.  Instead, mothers, live for Jesus, weeping, interceding, feeding, and nurturing their children in the faith.  “Rachael” did this along the road, from her grave, as her “children” passed by into Babylonian exile and into the wilderness (the place of exile).  The Israelites would have seen the monument Jacob erected for Rachel while marching into exile past her grave.  By remembering God’s promise to Rachel, the grave would have reminded them and exhorted them that they are not forgotten and still have a hope and future.

From looking into the role of mothers in the Body, I begin to see our children as plantings of the Lord, that often times our tears water, and then God in His compassion and love and providential Grace gives to them a hope and a future in His son.

I am grateful for His love.  There is truly no greater gift then to be fed by Him, the fulfillment of the promise, our hope and future.  Thank you Jesus!  I pray I will be able to live and love as He lived and loved on this Earth.  I pray that in me, thru Jesus, my children might see a well rooted woman of God, well-watered, and with plenty Son that they too might crave His presence.  Thank you, Jesus, for gifting me with the role of a mother, and for the privilege to nurture and feed His children along the Way.

When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do–with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Feed My lambs. Again He said to him the second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Shepherd (tend) My sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with a deep, instinctive, personal affection for Me, as for a close friend]? Peter was grieved (was saddened and hurt) that He should ask him the third time, Do you love Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.  John 21:15-17 AMPC