Matthew 3:17 (Living Bible) “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, and I am wonderfully pleased with him.’”
I am the mother of a beloved son; indeed, I am the mother of two beloved sons. When I sing the Christmas hymn “Rock-a-Bye, My Dear Little Boy,” I remember rocking my own dear little boys on their first Christmas, when they were new to the world. So I know something about what it is to love a son and look forward with eagerness—and some trepidation—to what the future will bring for him and for me.
It is God who calls Jesus his “beloved son,” but I find myself thinking about Mary, who must have sensed from the miraculous circumstances of his conception what extraordinary demands might be made of her. The Christmas song “Mary, Did You Know?” asks whether Mary knew that her baby boy would one day walk on water and “save our sons and daughters,” but I wonder if she knew how much pain he—and she—and God the Father Himself would endure from the magnitude of this sacrifice this would bring. May we never forget the love God must have had for us to do this and what that love cost Mary, too. May we love our neighbors, and even our enemies, as fully and fiercely as we can to be worthy of a love like this.
—Claudia Mills
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