Does the title of this article mean that mothers are the gift or that mothers are the ones from whom the gift comes? The answer is, “Both!”
“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)
Eve means “life” or “source of life.” Every person since then has received the gift of an earthly, human life from her—our first mother—as God Himself designed. The Old and New Testament Scriptures attest to that.
All who are children of God by faith can trace their eternal life back also to Eve. (Some readers may have responded to that last sentence with a doubletake, but it’s true!) When God gave the very first Gospel promise in Genesis 3:15, did He not refer to the one we now know as Jesus Christ as “her Seed”?
Over the following millennia God did give life and the promise of eternal life through mothers. God revealed the names of many: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. The physical family line and the accompanying promise of a Savior were, in no small part, passed along through the mothers of succeeding generations.
Gabriel summarized it well when he said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” (Luke 1:30-32) By announcing that she would conceive in her womb and bring forth a Son (become a mother by having a baby), that His name will be Jesus (Savior), and that her Son would be the Son of the Highest (divine) and the son of David (human), the angel brought it all together very well!
By granting salvation to them through the Messiah and the privilege of being mothers through whom the Messiah would come, God gave awesome gifts to those mothers. By providing the generations following Eve with children raised to know the coming Messiah (Christ) as their Savior, mothers supported the fathers in blessing their children and their children’s children with the gift of eternal life through the Gospel found in the books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
Mothers are God’s wonderful gift also to those of us living today! Christian mothers are God’s gifts when they bless their children’s children with the gift of life everlasting through the Gospel foretold in the Old Testament and now fulfilled in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. Think of those mothers joining with the fathers in bringing their children to be baptized for the remission of sins—including inherited sin—and forgiveness washing over them for the rest of their lives. God considers a mother singing “Jesus Loves Me” while rocking her baby to be more important than anything being reported in the secular news.
I recall a seminary professor saying that Christian mothers may well have a greater impact than the clergy on their sons entering the seminary. There’s an old proverb that says, “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy!”
One source quotes C.F.W. Walther saying to his expecting daughter, “If God would give you a million dollars, this would be a lesser gift than a little child. . . . In dying you must leave everything behind here; but . . . when through God’s grace that little one learns to know the Savior and to believe in Him, you will rejoice with it in all eternity.”
Thanks be to God for the Gift of Mothers!
is pastor of Gift of God Lutheran Church in Mapleton, North Dakota, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Ponsford, Minnesota.