Strength and tenderness

This blog was co-written by my brother, his part is the blue type font.

Lent 4.

Halfway through the struggle of Lent, how’s the non chocolate time going?

When I was thinking about today’s post I looked up on-line for what the readings were and found that the Old Testament reading was meant to be Samuel going to anoint David, great passage I thought.
However when I turned up in church this morning in Hamilton after getting wrong directions, I came in to hear the reading from Exodus of Moses being placed in the reed basket. Ah, Mothering Sunday. Good call.
That’s one thing I have noticed about this Lent period, a lot of things have been impinged upon, main events like Valentines Day, Mothering Sunday replacing Lent 4 but also smaller things.

Today’s reading reminded me of a line in the Creed we use at St Paul’s Dundee, “with a father’s tenderness & mother’s strength”, which seems strange as normally the mother is usually given the tenderness attribute & the father the strength.

However what strength it must haven taken Moses’ mother to give up her son.

What strength it must have taken Jesus mother to live with the knowledge that a spear would pierce her side also.

So considering these the line no longer seems surprising, in fact it seems that mothers are not given the recognition for their strength.

I propose that this Mothering Sunday we consider the strength of Mothers, particularly the strength of Mary as the shadow of The Cross is cast over this second half of Lent.

Doug & Gordon Aitken

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