“The mother cult is something that will set
future generations roaring with laughter.” – Gustave Flaubert.
Those generations haven’t arrived yet,
obviously, and the cult of the mother, which holds its signal celebration on
this day, still flourishes.
Mother-worship is as old as mankind itself.
The Earth Mother was probably civilized man’s first deity – the goddess of
crops. The Virgin Mary was a much later version. The most famous mother in
Western history has her hordes of ardent devotees even down to this day.
What would Jesus have made of the idea of
people venerating His mother? For that matter, what would He have thought of
Jesus-worship? The New Testament provides no clear-cut evidence that He
regarded Himself as divine. As for his mom’s awareness of it, consider the
episode in Matthew in which she urges her son to go with her to John the
Baptist and be baptized, in order to wash away His sins.
Indeed, it appears, at least to this skeptic
from his reading of the Gospels, that Jesus had no inkling of His divine duty
until He met John the Baptist and was inspired to start preaching himself. Even
then, he delayed matters for 40 days and nights, pondering on it. If He’d
been convinced of his supposed mission, would he have waited?
As for the Virgin Birth, did Jesus ever hear
of it? It’s never mentioned in Mark (the oldest Gospel) or John, and the
details of it differ in Matthew and Luke. Again, the notion of virgin birth was
an age-old one and very common in Jesus’s part of the world in those days,
particularly in Egypt.
Just sayin’. Happy Mother’s Day.
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