Mark 5.21-24 & 35-43
How like a Bible mum and dad are your mums and dads?
Have your mum or your dad ever lost you in a crowd?
When my elder son David was still in his pushchair we went with him and our daughter into British Home Stores. My wife Helen wanted to look at some clothes, but she also had something to return, which she gave to me. 'Take it to the returns’ desk,’ she said, 'Then come and find me.’
When I got back to her she said, Where's David?’ I said, 'I thought he was with you!’
When I got back to the returns’ desk he was still sitting in his pushchair, over to one side, blithely unaware that I had left him; a bit like Jesus - who got separated from his parents in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and was blithely unaware that they would be worrying about him!
Do your mum or your dad sometimes mix you up with your brothers and sisters?
Actually this is another of my failings. My elder grandaughter, Erin, looks so much like her mother did when she was the same age that I constantly call her Jenny, which is my daughter's name, by mistake.
That’s more or less what Isaac did; he was one of the ancestors of the people of Israel. He gave his blessing to the wrong son by mistake. He was supposed to bless the elder son but he blessed the younger one and caused a great deal of upset. Fortunately, when I call Erin ‘Jenny’, everyone just laughs!
Would you let your mum or your dad pick your clothes?
Actually, I think I'm not bad at this. But until I was about 18 my mother chose most of my clothes, on the principle that she knew more about clothes than I did, and she was paying for them anyway. The result was that I was never really 'on trend'. Instead I looked more like a man of 40 than a boy of 14. The game was finally up when I got my own money and a girlfriend!
It's the same mistake that was made by Jacob, the father of Joseph - to whom he gave the amazing technicolour dreamcoat. It’s one thing to wear a rainbow coloured coat on stage in a hit musical, and quite another thing to walk down the street in it! Joseph was the target of some serious bullying.
Do your mum and dad like your friends?
Actually my mum wasn't absolutely sure she liked my girlfriend, especially when she started choosing all my clothes, but we've been together since then for another 40 years. Quite soon my mother said Helen was the best thing that had happened to me.
Mary the mother of Jesus took a bit of persuading about his friends as well. One day she turned up with his brothers and sisters to try to get him away from his friends because she thought they were a bad influence. But in the end Jesus won her round and she, as well as two of his brothers, became part of his close circle of friends too.
[Prince Jonathan’s Dad, the first king of Israel seemed at first to like his best friend David. He used to get David to play him soothing music when he was feeling a bit down, but then Dad changed his mind and hurled a spear at David so the two friends had to start meeting in secret.]
Are your mum or your dad to blame for your embarrassing nickname?
One of my sons and his wife decided to call their son ‘Ted’, which is also the name of my father-in-law, my son’s Grandad. So now we have Big Ted and Little Ted. I hope Little Ted doesn't find that nickname embarrassing when he gets a little older!
James and John, two of Jesus’s closest friends, were nicknamed ‘The Sons of Thunder’. We don’t really know why but perhaps it’s because their dad had a very loud voice and was always shouting at them. Does that sound like anyone you know?
Finally, have your mum or your dad ever made a public spectacle of themselves - not by dad dancing or turning up at the school gates in pyjamas, but just because they were trying to help you out when you were in trouble?
When Jairus’s daughter was very ill he heard there was a new healer in town so he hurried to meet him. He fell at the healer’s feet and begged him - in front of a huge crowd of people - to come and heal his daughter.
Well OK, it’s not very likely your mum or dad has knelt down and begged someone to help you, although your dad might have knelt down in public and asked your mum to marry him. But have your mum or your dad ever put themselves out in a major way just to help you?
That’s the kind of mum and dad we all want, isn’t it? We’ll never have perfect mums and dads, and we can't ever be perfect mums and dads ourselves.
We can only wish for our mums and dads to be good enough to help us turn out alright, and to love us enough to put themselves out sometimes to help us. And then we can try to follow their example, and maybe learn from a few of their mistakes.
We often call God our Father, and sometimes our Mother too. It’s a reminder that God puts himself out in a major way to help us. In Jesus he came himself to share our problems, and to save us from them when we were in trouble.
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