This Sunday in Vinebranch, for Part 3 of our sermon series, “Seven Last Words,” we’ll be looking at John 19:26-27: “Woman, here is your son… [Son,] Here is your mother.” Here are some interesting words (again) from William Willimon:
In a culture like our own, dominated by “family values,” where we have nothing better to command our allegiance to than our own blood relatives, this is one of the good things the church does for many of us. In baptism, we are rescued from our family. Our families, as good as they are, are too narrow, too restricted. So in baptism we are adopted into a family large enough to make our lives more interesting… Church is where we are thrown together with a bunch of strangers and are forced to call these people with whom we have no natural affinity, nothing in common, “brother,” “sister.”†
† William Willimon, Thank God It’s Friday: Encountering the Seven Last Words from the Cross (Nashville: Abingdon, 2006), 32.