Those of us who were blessed to have good mothers know that a good mother is your first true friend. No one will defend you like a mother who loves you. A good mother never stops believing in you. She never lets other people bully you. Anyone who comes after you immediately becomes her mortal enemy. There’s basically nothing you can do to make a good mother stop loving you, believing in you, and sticking up for you.
My mom is the only person on earth who has stood up for me since the day I was born. To this day, she calls me her “sweet boy,” and I am 42 years old.
There are some blind spots when it comes to a mother’s love. When you love like a mother, you’re liable to get hurt. You’ll be taken advantage of or taken for granted. But if you ever learn to love another person with a mother’s love, you’ll also be that much closer to understanding the love of God.
In the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel, you’ll find the obscure story of a mother named Rizpah. 2 Sam 3:7 says, “Now Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpah…”
Saul and David were rivals, because Saul was the first king of Israel, and he’d lost his way. So God appointed David to unseat Saul and take over the kingdom. Saul had a concubine. Concubines were basically slave-wives. They had no choice in the matter, and no legal rights. They only existed to serve the needs of their masters. It was not an easy existence. Rizpah had two sons by Saul, and after Saul killed himself, those two boys were all that Rizpah had.
But Saul made a lot of enemies during his reign, including the Gibeonites, and as a compromise to make peace with the Gibeonites, David handed over the two sons of Saul and Rizpah to the Gibeonites:
“…and the Gibeonites impaled them on the mountaintop. Then Rizpah took sackcloth, and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of prey to feast on the bodies by day, or the wild animals by night. When David was told what Rizpah had done, he went and took the remains of Saul and his son Jonathan…and the bones of Rizpah’s sons. They buried the remains in the land of Benjamin in Zela…after that, God heard their prayers for the land.” – 2 Samuel 21:8-14
Unless you’ve lost a child, I’m not sure it’s possible to understand the gut-level grief a mother like Rizpah went through after her sons were taken from her. The grief is too heavy a burden to bear. Many parents who bury a child seem to age ten years overnight.
And here we have Rizpah, whose two boys were all she had, and then they were taken from her. I wonder what my response would have been in her place. Maybe I’d be paralyzed by grief and rage. Maybe I’d curl up in a dark corner and die a little more each day. But not Rizpah. Rizpah hiked up the mountain where her sons’ bodies hanged, and all she took was a sackcloth for a blanket.
Buzzards and other scavenger birds came to tear away their flesh, but Rizpah beat them back with a stick. At night, wolves and mountain lions came to feast, and Rizpah scared them off. For more than six months, she stayed on that mountain, protecting her sons’ lifeless bodies.
Why? Having a proper burial meant everything to ancient Hebrews like Rizpah. Without a burial, it was believed that a dead person could never find rest with God. For Rizpah, nothing less than the eternal salvation of her babies was at stake. She was a good mother. Nothing stands in the way of a good mother’s love…not even death itself. She had protected them since the day they were born, and when they died, her love did not. She was their first true friend, and their last.
After six months of standing up for her sons, Rizpah finally got King David’s attention. He was so moved by her devotion that he had her sons’ bodies cut down and buried in the same tomb as their father, King Saul, and their half-brother, Jonathan, who was David’s best friend. He buried them with highest honor, and finally, their mother could rest.
The reason a story like Rizpah’s matters is because it reveals something about the love of God. We should never make the mistake of sentimentalizing or trivializing God’s love. It’s not the stuff of fairy tales. God’s love is gritty and tireless and tough. When you’re in trouble or under attack, God’s love is ferocious and protective. When others mean to harm you, God’s love burns hot with anger. The Bible analogizes God’s love to the love of a mother.
“I will attack them like a mother bear, robbed of her cubs.” – Hosea 13:8
“Can a woman forget her nursing child…even if these forget…I will never forget you.” – Isaiah 49:15
Jesus also revealed something about the maternal heart of God just before he rode into Jerusalem, where he knew he would be arrested and crucified, and he said,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I desired to gather you under my wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” – Matthew 23:37
Time and time again, the Bible compares God’s love for us to the way a good mother loves her babies. A mother’s love can never be deterred by your sins or your mistakes, and neither can the love of God. A mother’s love will always stand up for you, defend you, and protect you, in life and, if necessary, in death. And so will the love of God.
I don’t think we really grasp it. I’m not sure we internalize how loved we are by God. I look around at The Story Church, or in the city of Houston, or on social media, or just in the mirror at myself, and it’s clear that we’re all living like we have something to prove. We work and dress and shop and compete like it’s up to us to win the approval of others. We have a God who has promised to love us with a mother’s heart, but we choose to live desperately, as if we’re orphans on our own.
This Mother’s Day weekend, whether or not you have an earthly mother to celebrate, and whether or not you have kids of your own, I hope we all will take a moment to celebrate the unconditional, unstoppable, eternal love of God. And when we’re tempted to prove ourselves, may we instead choose to remember that God has already proven His love for us, and there is nothing left to prove.
Or as Hebrews 13:4-6 puts it:
Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”
