Mom Was There

By Pastor Justin Cooper  |  Gospel Light Baptist Church  |  Mother's Day

There is a question Pastor Justin Cooper asked Sunday morning that opened the whole message wide open. "Where is the most important place in this world?"

Adults will give you a lot of answers. Church. Home. Maybe — if they really lose their head — a government building. But Pastor Cooper made a point that landed before he even cracked open the Scripture: ask a child where the most important place in the world is, and they'll tell you, "wherever I am." Then ask them who needs to be there with them, and you'll hear one word.

Mama.

From there, Pastor Cooper turned us to John 19 — to the foot of the cross. Calvary. The crowd that once filled the hillsides was thin by then. The disciples had scattered. The fed multitudes, the healed blind, the legions Christ had touched — they were all gone.

But somebody was still there. Somebody close enough that Jesus could see her face.

His mother.

A study of Mary

Pastor Cooper said he didn't intend to step out of our walk through the Psalms this Sunday, but Mother's Day pulled him toward another study. He looked through the Bible for a woman to anchor the message and landed on the obvious one — and then explained why Baptists don't talk about her enough.

"You don't hear a lot of talk about Mary in Baptist churches because other places have made an idol out of her. But it shouldn't scare us away from the example of this virtuous woman, this humble girl that God used to give to us our Savior."

So he walked us back through Mary's life — but he did it in reverse. He started at Calvary, where she stood at the cross. Then he traced backwards. The cradle in Bethlehem. The temple eight days later when Christ was consecrated and named. The wise men's visit. The escape into Egypt. The temple again, when Jesus was twelve and the family found Him with the lawyers and scribes. The wedding in Cana. The house in Capernaum where Christ was casting out devils. And finally back to Calvary.

Mary was at every one of them.

Society's mother vs. the Bible's mother

Before he made the application, Pastor Cooper drew a sharp line. Society's idea of motherhood, he said, is a woman who does what she wants and goes where she pleases — runs here and there, sleeps in long, microwaves something for the kids if she feels like it. That's not the Bible's example.

"A mother is not an on and off again job. It's a 24/7 lifetime commitment to a child."

That was the anchor sentence. Mary's mothering wasn't a hobby. It was a vocation. And the proof of it is in how often she shows up in the gospel narratives — often without saying a word, often without doing anything visible. Just being there.

Mom was there

This is where the message slowed down and the room quieted down.

Pastor Cooper asked us to think about all the times in our own lives when mom was simply there. When you woke up with a bad dream. When you had a headache. When you needed reassurance and a voice to calm you down. When you brought home a pet snake. When you wanted an audience to watch you cannonball into the swimming pool for the millionth time. When you wanted to learn to play drums on the pots and pans.

Mom was there.

She was there folding clothes and washing dishes and driving you to school and organizing your bedroom. She was there at the recital, the ball field, the awards banquet, the graduation. She was there to comb your hair, kiss your scrapes, bandage your scratches, rub your back, hug your neck, hold your hand.

She was there for the home run in T-ball — and there cheering so loud you couldn't even make it to first base because you were too busy watching her.

She was there.

"Mothers weave the tapestry of family. They score the symphony of compassion. They mortar the structure of the home."

Pastor Cooper said he wrote that line in his office Saturday. It belongs.

She was just there

Then came the pivot. Pastor Cooper pointed us back to Mary — to a woman who couldn't possibly keep up with her own Son's ministry. Her Son could walk on water. Raise the dead. Open blind eyes. Make deaf ears hear. Mary couldn't do any of those things.

"Mary can't calm the storm. Mary can't raise the dead. Mary can't turn water into Welch's grape juice. But she can do the one thing every child wants their mother to do. What's that? Be there."

All throughout His life, she was just there. Being mom.

Two challenges

From there Pastor Cooper made two direct calls — one to mothers and one to every child whose mother is still living.

Mothers, love your kids by being there. He turned to the moms in the room and asked them to pour themselves into their homes. Consistent. Stable. Available. Loving. Long-suffering. Forgiving. Compassionate. And yet with conviction. He pointed to Proverbs 31 — the virtuous woman who is fundamentally devoted to her household. He told the moms in the room: "You're like the Holy Spirit of the home. You set the atmosphere." And then he made the case for the weight of it. The young life in your home is still moldable. Still shapable. Still impressionable. "You are shaping the future of our church and our nation and our world by the influence and impact you have on your children."

Children, love your mom while she's here. This is where the room got quiet.

"I know you're busy. But you're not Calvary busy. I know you're busy, but you're not paying for the sins of the world busy."

If Jesus could pause from the cross to make sure His mother was cared for — handing her into John's keeping with the words "Woman, behold thy son!" — then you and I can pause from a workday to call our mama.

Pastor Cooper got even more direct.

"I love yous are too late. And thank yous are too late. But today, if your mother's alive, I love yous aren't too late."

He told us there are people in our own church right now who would give almost anything for five more minutes with their mother. And many of us still have her. We still have a phone. We still have a doorway to walk through.

Then he told a story. His own mama still stands in the doorway and waves whenever he leaves her house. His grandmother — Mama and Papa, on a gravel road in West Virginia — used to do the same, waving until the taillights were out of sight. Now Mama and Papa are gone. The hedge has a gap in it. And one day his own mama will, too.

But not today.

The closing question

Pastor Cooper closed not with a soft word but a hard one.

"I'm not going to ask you, are you right with God? Because the way you answer this tells me if you're right with God. Are you right with your mother?"

The invitation opened. People came forward. Some came to make peace with God. Some came to bring their mother to an altar and pray with her. Some came because they had never been saved — and they didn't want to wait one more day to be sure.

If you're reading this and your mother is still living, Pastor Cooper's message has a follow-up just for you. Don't put it off till tomorrow.

Make the call. Send the text. Say it.