Sermon Tone Analysis

“Praise the LORD!

Praise, O servants of the LORD,

praise the name of the LORD!

“Blessed be the name of the LORD

from this time forth and forevermore!

From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the LORD is to be praised!

“LORD is high above all nations,

and his glory above the heavens!

Who is like the LORD our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes,

with the princes of his people.

He gives the barren woman a home,

making her the joyous mother of children.

Praise the LORD!” [1]

In our Tuesday evening Bible study, we have spent time in the Minor Prophets during these spring months.

We just completed a review of Micah and we are now focused on Zephaniah.

As I prepare these studies, I am astounded at how quickly God moved when He judged His people.

He gave multiplied warnings that the people must not presume against grace.

As you know, they did presume against grace and suddenly God would do what He had warned He would do if they did not repent.

When judgement comes, I find myself weeping at the thoroughness of God’s judgement.

As I read the history of the nation leading up to judgement, I find myself marvelling at how obtuse the people were, how callused they became because judgement didn’t come on their schedule, how arrogant the nation became because they depended on their history.

I find myself wanting to yell out a warning, knowing that it is too late.

As I read Zephaniah this past week, reviewing the history of the nation when God finally said, “Enough,” I could barely catch my breath.

I read again contemporary accounts of the sack of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans.

Remembering Jeremiah’s Lament, “We have sinned” [LAMENTATIONS 3:42 HCSB], I grieve with the God’s warning concerning what is coming that was delivered by the mouth of Zephaniah:

“I will bring distress on mankind,

so that they shall walk like the blind,

because they have sinned against the LORD.”

[ZEPHANIAH 1:17]

Paul would say to the Corinthian Christians, “[The events recorded in the Old Covenant] took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.

Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’

We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” [1 CORINTHIANS 10:6-11].

I understand that a message that begins by speaking of judgement seems a strange message to deliver on a day set aside to honour mothers.

I realise that modern Christians do not enjoy being confronted with sinful behaviour, even when the behaviour is witnessed as a part of contemporary culture.

Neither do we appreciate being made to feel uncomfortable through receiving warnings concerning divine judgement.

Nevertheless, there is a message that needs to be declared; it is needed more today than at any point in the history of our nation.

Undoubtedly, Mothers’ Day will continue to be observed for the foreseeable future.

So long as children continue to be born there will be an observance in which fathers teach their children to honour their mothers; there will always be children who hold their mothers in esteem.

I am concerned, however, that there may well be drastic changes in the observance we know as Mother’s Day.

*FOUNDATIONAL TRUTHS* —

“Praise the LORD!

Praise, O servants of the LORD,

praise the name of the LORD!

“Blessed be the name of the LORD

from this time forth and forevermore!

From the rising of the sun to its setting,

the name of the LORD is to be praised!

“LORD is high above all nations,

and his glory above the heavens!

Who is like the LORD our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes,

with the princes of his people.

In order to present an appropriate Mother’s Day message, it is necessary to understand why we should even have such a day.

Mother’s Day has roots extending deeply into ancient history.

The ancient Egyptians held an annual festival in honour of the goddess Isis.

The Phrygian goddess Cybele and the Greek mother goddess Rhea were similarly honoured, merging until they were virtually indistinguishable.

The Romans adopted these goddesses into the Roman pantheon as the Magna Mater, ordering an annual festival known as Megalesia.

Megalesia was hosted near the time of the Vernal Equinox and the festival of Hilaria.

This Roman festival of Hilaria continued in Europe until the Sixteenth Century when it was adopted as part of the Laetare Sunday (the fourth Sunday of Lent) among the Catholic churches.

The day was set apart to honour the Virgin Mary and the church in which individual Christians were baptised (their mother church).

A clerical decree in England during the Seventeenth Century expanded this day to include honouring real mothers, and the day became known as Mothering Day.

Mothering Day became a day of some significance in England as it provided a reprieve from the Lenten fasting.

Servants and trade workers were allowed to travel back to their homes in order to visit their families.

Mothers were presented with cakes and flowers, and distant children came home to visit their mothers.

Mothering Day was forgotten on the frontier of North America, perhaps because the settlers were so busy trying to stay alive.

However, in the late Nineteenth Century, Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” began to advocate for an International Mother’s Day that would celebrate peace and motherhood.

In 1870, Howe proclaimed Mother’s Day.

Her purpose was primarily to call mothers together to protest their sons killing the sons of other mothers in war.

Though Howe’s insistence for a Mother’s Day failed to capture the popular imagination, it did generate some interest in a few isolated areas.

Anna M. Jarvis promoted a Mother’s Friendship Day in West Virginia.

Her purpose was to reunite families and neighbours that had been divided between the Union and the Confederate sides of the American Civil War.

In 1908, Anna petitioned the superintendent of the Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where her mother had taught Sunday School for twenty years, and a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Her request was honoured, and the first Mother’s Day was observed in West Virginia on May 10, 1908.

That same year, at the request of the Young Men’s Christian Association, Elmer Burkett, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, proposed making Mother’s Day a national holiday.

His proposal was defeated; but by 1909 forty-six states were holding Mother’s Day services as well as parts of Canada and Mexico.

Anna Jarvis quit working, devoting herself fulltime to the creation of Mother’s Day, petitioning state governments, business leaders, women groups, churches and other institutions.

She convinced the World’s Sunday School Association to back her in this effort.

In 1912, West Virginia became the first state to give official recognition to Mother’s Day; and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed Mother’s Day into national observance, declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

[2]

Canada preceded the United States in formal recognition of this observance, declaring Mother’s Day to be a national holiday in 1909.

Mother’s Day in Canada is much like the observance in the United States with the added emphasis on doing chores and cooking for mothers on that particular day.

Let the men of the church take note.

With this brief history of the day, I am making no pronouncement as to whether Christians should observe or ignore this particular holiday.

I do note that the current observance is more of a civil holiday than a religious holiday, though the day did have roots reflecting a valid religious theme.

However, as with all holidays, Christians must ask whether a particular observance will honour God or whether it will disgrace His Name.

Because an observance is honoured among the faithful does not mean that every activity is blessed by God.

In the text, the Psalmist begins by calling on the servants of the LORD to praise His Name.

God is to be praised because of who He is.