Well, good morning. It's a privilege to be here. It's always a opportunity and gift to be able to address the saints out of the Word of God, even in a scattered congregation like this. If I was in my home church, I would call you all forward. But of course, we're in a post-COVID era when people have concerns about proximity. But it is good to be here and we look to the Lord for his blessing as we consider his word this morning together. The passage that I'll be reading, and there will be a number of passages that I'll be addressing this morning and referring to, we will begin in Luke chapter two. So if you'd like to turn there in your pew Bible or if you brought your own Bible, let's see, the page is 857. And I'll read both of these passages. There are actually two of them that I'll be referring to in this passage of Luke 2. But beginning with, let's begin with verse, I'd like to begin with verse 26, I think. Luke chapter 2, verse 26. Please stand out of reverence for the reading of the word of God. Thank you. Alright, Luke 2. It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. And his father and mother marveled at what was said about it. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And moving down to verse 41. Now his parents, Jesus' parents, went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he, Jesus, was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it. But supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey. But then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him. After three days, they found him in the temple. sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. Let us look to the Lord in prayer. Our father, as we consider this passage, and the theme this morning of three of the names of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we ought to understand them. and what they ought to do to us. That is the truth of who you are, dear savior. We ask that your spirit, the spirit of the father and the son would come so that the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts would be acceptable to you, you who are our rock and our redeemer. I pray for Christ's sake. Amen. Please be seated. Everyone who has ever lived will be raised from the dead one day and they will acknowledge, if they've never known it, they will be informed and they will be acknowledged that the one we call Jesus Christ was from all eternity the Son of God. God the Son. And that he became the Son of Mary, by the action of the Holy Spirit. And he called himself, and his ministry was characterized by what he said was the Son of Man. Everyone who becomes a Christian, a true Christian, acknowledges these same things. In whatever order it might be, they may start with the fact that Jesus was the Son of Mary, and move on to the fact that, oh, he is also the son of God. He is God himself. But then they must come to grips with what did Jesus mean when he called himself the son of man. This is something that Mary had to learn. It wasn't just something that would come naturally. It did not come naturally because the expectation of the Jews at the time of Jesus' coming was they were not to suffer anymore when the Messiah came, because the Messiah would exonerate them, because they had been suffering for centuries. And right now, at the time Jesus came, was born, they were under the dominion of the Romans, after having been under the dominion of the Greeks, and then before that, the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Assyrians. And so they had suffered. They were not looking for a suffering Messiah. They were not looking for one who would call himself the son of man and then say things about himself that made no sense to them. I want us to consider, first of all, in this passage that I just read, the words of Simeon. and return to the alternatives that he gives to Mary when he actually blesses them and then says to her, speaking specifically to her in verse 34, behold, this child is appointed, the verb actually means lies, is situated. He has come into the world for this position. And this is the position that he's situated for, for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed or literally that is spoken against. And I would argue that the original of this passage gives us two categories here. It gives us the category first of the falling and rising of many. Many applies to both. And then he gives us the other category of a sign to be spoken against. So that in the one case is a positive statement, that there will be a falling before there can be a rising. In fact, the word for rising everywhere else, this noun is used in the New Testament, it means the resurrection, a coming to new life. So before there can be a rising, there must be a falling. Now the Bible has many ways to speak to us and does of conversion. Sometimes it's being healed of sin as a disease. It is a being given new life by the Spirit as to dead people. It's the conviction of sin and the forgiveness that comes. But what I think Simeon was doing here in speaking to Mary was to say there are going to be two basic reactions. And it must happen if a person is to be converted and to be a follower of the Son of Man who must suffer, that they will first fall and then they will be raised again. And this is the pattern that we see all through the Scriptures regarding God's dealing with people. Two verses that are particularly pertinent to this are found in, one in Amos, chapter 9. That is quoted in Acts 15 when the Apostle James quotes Amos 9.11, which is that the tent of David which has fallen will be reconstituted. And he takes that to mean exactly what Peter had just been speaking about in Acts 15, gospel to the Gentiles. that the collapse of the seeming end of Judaism, and was the end of Judaism, was not going to be the end of God's work. It was really going to be the beginning of raising a new tent that would not only have Jews in it, but it would have Gentiles in it. And that was, of course, the discussion that was going on there in Acts 15. In Micah, chapter 7, verse 8, we get another figure of this same sort. Do not rejoice over me, O enemy, says the prophet. Though I have fallen, I will rise again. And of course, supremely, this is true of Christ. He must fall. He must be crucified. He must suffer the last thing that any Jew would have ever imagined their Messiah could be. And yet it's the very thing that in John 3 is described as the glorification. When Jesus says, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me. What an irony that is. That in that worst of events, the crushing of Christ, the pouring out of the wrath of God upon him. His fall was the means of our salvation. And that he was raised again the third day and seated. And so for every believer, for every true conversion, there must be a falling. There must be an end of the way we think about life outside of Christ, outside of the way he defines it. For we don't make community, we don't make communion even with one another. One of the glorious things about God is the triunity of God is God defines community. God himself defines communion. And the wonder is that we are invited to come into that communion and that community, but we must fall first. The foundations on which we live our lives if we are not converted and not Christians and don't belong to the Savior by the true faith that we professed in the Heidelberg Catechism, and what a magnificent definition it is, That foundation must be destroyed because it can't stand. In fact, this word fall here that Simeon uses is only used one other place in the New Testament. And it's in our Lord's Sermon on the Mount referred to earlier. In chapter seven, when Jesus is closing the sermon with that last illustration, which is the two houses, the two houses look identical. They are wonderful externally. The problem is the foundation. In one case, it's a foundation on the rock. On the other case, it's a foundation on sand. And when the storm comes and beats against the house on the sand, it falls. And Jesus' word is, great was the patosis thereof, the fall. That's this word. So, friend, this morning, if you're not a Christian, and I would love to think I'm just speaking to Christians, and I may be, and that's wonderful, your basis, your foundation must be destroyed. It must end so that the Lord can erect on a solid foundation, the rock that was mentioned before, that is God, that is Christ, a new structure that will stand. Well, this reality had to happen to Mary. And it's a very interesting thing to think about Mary, historically. We Protestants are sort of gun-shy about Mary, I think. We hear what others say about her and so we sort of neglect her altogether. But we need to put her in the context that she belongs in. The angel came to her and told her that she was going to have a baby, and that this one was going to be a ruler. Didn't sound like he was going to suffer from anything that Gabriel said to Mary. Gabriel told Joseph that his name would be Jesus, because that means Savior, and he'd be saving his people from their sins. Not from the Romans. But to Mary, Oh, he was going to be triumphant, a king. He would rule forever. And she was favored and the Lord was with her. And those words are normally used of a believer, of a person that's righteous. And so, as far as we can tell, that was true of Mary. So what Mary probably illustrates for us, we don't know the secrets of the work of the Spirit of God in a person when they actually become alive to the knowledge, saving knowledge of the Lord. But from all outward evidences, she was a faithful Jewish gal that the Lord chose to bring the Savior into the world so that he would be the son of Mary. Son of God becoming son of Mary, but to Mary also, he had to become the son of man, her savior. She even confesses that in her song in Luke 2. I rejoice in, in Luke 1, Luke, I rejoice in God, my savior. So let's follow this morning the process that the scripture gives us, the Holy Spirit's indicia about what happened in regard to Mary. And it starts in that story that ends chapter two that I read for us, where at 12 years old, Jesus accompanies his parents to the temple for the feast. And the translation in the ESV is very accurate about this, and it's very striking because it says that after the feast was over, while his parents were returning, this is verse 43 of chapter two, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Now we know Jesus never sinned. He could not have sinned and be our savior. Not one speck, not one thought, not one word could he speak idly and be our savior. So he did not sin in doing this, but what is happening here? And it should jar us. I hope that when you read the scripture, you don't say, oh yeah, I'm familiar with that. And it doesn't shake you up any. The Bible should shake us up. And this passage is part of that. When a boy became 12 years old as a Jew, he had what was called the bar mitzvah, a process by which he became bar, son, mitzvah, the commandment, son of the commandment, underneath the law. He'd been circumcised as an eight day old, but now he was becoming a man, ready to be able to take the scriptures and himself study them, and follow them, and according to so much of the Jewish tradition, earn his salvation by keeping the law, which is still, sadly, the process of so many Jews. Tragedy. It's so sad. So, our Savior, at 12 years old, did not begin hearing about the word of God as a 12-year-old in the temple. Clearly he had gone, undoubtedly he had gone, with his parents in Nazareth to the synagogue every week, listening to the reading of the Scriptures. Where did Jesus learn that he would be the Son of Man as the Son of Mary? From the Scriptures. From the Old Testament Scriptures, which describe what the Messiah was to be, which included Isaiah 53. included Psalm 22, included the passages where the Messiah must suffer. In fact, the whole sacrificial system was pointing to a Lamb that would come without blemish, that would end those sacrifices, because the problem with the sacrifices is, was, they kept happening. When would the end come to this shedding of blood? When would the final Lamb of God appear? Jesus learned of his mission from the scriptures. And learned it every week as he read the scriptures and learned of who God was as man. We must never forget that the Lord Jesus, and the Luke passage is clear on this, grew. And he grew in knowledge, and he grew in understanding, and he grew in understanding of who he was. So that by the time he was 12 years old, his Bar Mitzvah, He is becoming a man under the Jewish tradition. He could sit in the temple. He could prefer to be in the temple and listen and respond to the leaders of the Jewish church at that time, the Jewish people. What a position this was. So when Mary and Joseph finally come back and find him, They are concerned about them. And that's understandable. We all have empathy with Mary and Joseph. It's terrifying. This boy had never shown anything like this before, it would appear. He'd always been a model child. It's just hard to imagine where the parents are the problem and not the child. But Jesus was in submission to his parents, even though they were sinners. What are you doing to us? And Jesus' response is not, oh, I'm so sorry you were worried. Not at all. This is the beginning of Mary and Joseph and everyone else who will read it to understand that the son of Mary is also the son of man. And his public ministry does not start here, but this initial statement that Jesus makes, why were you looking for me, human? Didn't you know? How would you know? How would you know, Mary? How would you know, Joseph? Remember the angel. How often do angels appear to people and tell them things? How carefully should you listen to what you heard from the angel and keep that forefront in your mind as to what's going to happen with me? Why were you looking for me? Didn't you know I must be in my father's house or among the things of my father? And of course, what was the promise of Malachi? That the one you seek will suddenly come to his what? His temple. There he is. He's in the temple. He is the temple. Oh, how glorious are these images. But my point is that The beginning of the falling of Mary's concept of what the Messiah would be, of who her son is, starts with this incident when Jesus was 12 years old. Let's move on to the second passage we want to look at, actually third, which is in John chapter two. And that's also familiar to us, I suspect, where Jesus is now in his public ministry. He's been baptized by John the Baptist. He's gathered some disciples. He is carrying on his ministry in the north, up in north of Samaria, up in Galilee. And he and his disciples, as well as his mother, is invited to a wedding in Canaan. And they run out of wine. And Jesus' mother comes to him and says to him, they've run out of wine. You're probably familiar with it. Let me read it right here. And when the wine ran out, this is John 2, verse 3. The mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Listen to Jesus' words. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Now there are lots of attempts to soften what Jesus said to Mary, his mother. This phrase, which is a Greek translation of precisely a Hebrew phrase, occurs about five times in the Old Testament. And in every case, it's adversarial. For example, Jephthah, the judge, when the Ammonites are complaining about the way that Israel's behaving, he says, what do I have to do with you? What is this argument you have with me? And then he corrects them. When Elisha has to, is called in to help with a disastrous meeting of the king of Israel and the king of Judah when they're taking on an army, Elisha is so upset that he says this exact same thing. What do I have to do with you, King of Israel? If it weren't for the King of Judah here, I wouldn't even talk to you. This is an adversarial statement. In fact, literally it means, what to me and to you? What do we have in common? And D.A. Carson's comment on this is, you have no claim on me, or why are you involving me? And he says, we must not avoid the conclusion that Jesus, by rebuking his mother, declares at the beginning of his ministry his utter freedom from any kind of human advice, agenda, or manipulation. He has embarked on his ministry, the purpose of his coming, and his only lodestar, his only guiding direction, is his heavenly Father's will. and of what the scripture said. It's a hard word. Mary seems to ignore it and just says to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. She's hoping that whatever he meant by this, it won't matter. There won't be embarrassment because they ran out of wine and of course we know what he does. He has them fill the water pots, which were these huge things, pots that stood, you know, three or four feet off the ground with water. draw off the water to the head of the feast, and he says, oh my, this is a new wedding. You usually have the worst wine at the end. This is the best. You've saved the best for the end. But this break is something that Mary had to become aware of and come to grips with. The next passage I want to look at is in Mark 3. And before we go there, let me just remind you again of this process of falling and rising, of coming to grips with who the son of Mary truly is and his mission. You remember when Peter confessed the truth about Jesus in Matthew 16, when Jesus was asking him, who do people say that I am? He said, you're the Christ, the son of God. He correctly confesses it. But then Jesus immediately starts telling them, now that they've said, you're the Christ, here's what has to happen to the Christ as the son of man. He must suffer. He must be rejected. He must be crucified. He must be buried and will be raised again. And Peter takes him aside and says, spare yourself, Lord. Don't talk this way. And what does Jesus say to him? Peter must fall. He doesn't say that, but that's what must happen. Get you behind me, Satan. You're not understanding the things of God, but the things of man. And it was a hard, hard time Peter had with grasping who Jesus was and what would be required. And we know his loyalty and his love for Jesus persevered. in his mind, even to the point of saying, I will never deny you. I will die before I will deny you. And then what happened? Crash came, the worst of all falls. He denied Christ three times and wept bitterly. But the Lord raised him up, made him what he was, gave him new life, put his spirit in him. But as we see Mary in this next passage in Mark chapter three, Two times in this chapter, we read about the family being concerned about Jesus. In Mark 3 20, we read this. Then Jesus went home, or he went into the house, and it's translated he went home, and that may well be what it was. And the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard of it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, he is out of his mind. So the family at this point, whether Mary was involved or not, and we'll see in a few verses down from this that she was, were thinking Jesus was crazy. Something's the matter with him. He's got these men, he's walking around, he's healing people, he's teaching. He's doing other miracles, but he's so overcome with these crowds that he can't even eat. He's losing his mind. And then in verses 31 to 5 of this same Mark 3, we read, And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he or she is my brother, my sister, and my mother. That is a staggering statement. Staggering. Paul would develop it more in Romans 8 and other places when he said, John, I'm thinking of Paul in Romans 8 when he says, we are the sons of God. We have been adopted as his sons and daughters. But John says, what manner of love the Father has showed us that we should be called the sons of God. So here's Mary with his brothers. standing to talk to him, to interrupt, to arrest him, to take him out of this ministry as the son of man because she cannot grasp it. She hasn't come to an end of the wrong notion. In fact, the situation was such with the brothers, at least, that in John 7, our next passage that furthers this, Mary is not mentioned, but we simply read that The brothers said to Jesus in chapter 7, verse 3 of John, leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the works you're doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. You can hear the derision there, the disingenuous comments they're making. And John's comment is in verse five, for not even his brothers believed him. So it sort of seals the situation at this point in Jesus' ministry. Not only were the Pharisees against him, not only was he dealing with these disciples who were all over the map in terms of what they understood, often arguing with themselves, it seems, and who is the greatest? John and James' mother comes with them to want to be made the right and the left hand of Jesus and his kingdom. They're thinking glory. They're thinking anything other than son of man who must suffer, even though he said it repeatedly. Well, the last time Jesus has direct contact with his mother is in chapter 19 of John. Very moving thing. I'm sure you're familiar with it. I hope so. As you should be with all the seven words that Christ utters from the cross. Several of them are prayers. He spoke to the thief who repented. and gave him great promise of life. But he also spoke to his mother and to John, the disciple whom Jesus loves. And so, in verse 25, we read, standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, he doesn't say mother, he says woman. I'm sure he said it as tenderly as his body would permit, hanging on the cross, naked, streaming with blood, with everything else that had been going on. And right before this, they had gambled away his clothes. But he is going to handle his responsibility as the firstborn in the best way he can to his mother. And so he's going to commit her to someone to care for her. And so he says, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, John, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. And it no doubt was here at the cross. If not before that the sword which Simeon had predicted would pierce Mary's own heart. Remember he said, this one is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel and for a sign to be spoken against. And a sword will pierce your own heart. certainly if not before, at this time, standing there before the body of her son, still living at that moment. What could possibly have been in Mary's mind? Utter chaos. And he commits her to John to care for her. It's a magnificent moment. He's concerned about his mother. He's not forgotten her. He would not leave her alone. And so we're left with the question, what happened to Mary? What happened to her brothers? And again, to encourage you, because the whole point of this sermon is for you who believe, and even if you don't believe, to encourage you in 2023 to be reading the scriptures. and reading them with care and with prayer and with reflection on what is said so that you don't miss great treasures. And it would be easy to miss the great treasure that we read in the first chapter of Acts about Mary and about Jesus' family. After the ascension of Jesus, the disciples come back and they go into this upper room again and they are named And in verse 14, we read this of Acts chapter one, all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers, which probably included his sisters. They were rescued. They were raised. They began to understand that he had to die. He had to suffer. He had to crushingly fall. Except in that moment, as I said, he was being glorified, lifted up to draw all men unto the crucified Christ so that Paul would say, far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ. by which I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me. And he preached Christ crucified as the message of salvation to sinners. Here is Mary. She has grasped it. He is not just her son. He is not just God the son. In human form, he is the son of man who had to suffer and to bear the pain so that he could be the son of man as predicted by Daniel in chapter seven, who will come on the clouds of glory and with all of his host. So what a theme this is. This morning I just ask us, have we utterly fallen from the assumptions that we had if we're believers as unbelievers? Do we have a foot in the world? That is to say, our full joy and our full pleasure is not taken in the reality that everything we do, in how we think and how we speak, we belong to this Son of God, Son of Mary, Son of Man, who has bought us with His blood, who has fallen and been raised so that we might come to an end of ourselves. And as Paul says, if you've died with Christ, you've also been raised with him. And if we've been raised, we should seek those things which are above, where Christ is, seated in the heavenly places. Well, all else, all else outside of him is and should be counted as loss, dross, garbage, as Paul says it in Philippians 3, for the sake of gaining Christ. And in this process, a sword will pierce us. I mean, it's something that happened to the saints all along. Abraham had to cast out Ishmael, the one born according to the flesh. And then the Lord calls on him to sacrifice the child of promise. What three days, what horrible three days were those days where Abraham was walking to sacrifice Isaac? How could this be? We don't hear a word of it until he gets there. And his faith was such that he says to those who came with him, you stay here with the animal. I and the boy will go and worship and we will return. That first person plural means that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead if need be to fulfill his promise. And that's exactly how Hebrews 11 treats it. And others had the same thing. Joseph, so mistreated in his youth and then exalted. Job, not a more righteous man on earth. And what he suffered. the hands of the devil to be tried and to come to an end of his lesser view of God to a greater view of God. That's always the purpose, dear saints. God is wanting us to know more of himself because that's joy, that's hope, that is permanence, that won't fail. And Paul himself, you remember, oh, what a life he had before as a Jew. He was at the top of his game. And one day on the road to Damascus to carry out what he thought was the zealous purpose of his being alive as a Pharisee, he is crushed to the ground and falls blind. And then Jesus says, get up and go into Damascus. He raised him as it were from the deadness of his trespasses and sins and turned him into the apostle of the Gentiles. Well, where can we go and what can we do to endure, endure the swords that we'll face as Tom prayed? We don't know what we'll face in 2023. We don't know what lies before us. We don't know what further intensification of the paganizing of our society will mean for Christians and even in their assemblies, let alone what they're able to speak, speak publicly. and not be mistreated. Where is our place of safety? Well, it is where you hear the voice of God. And where is that? It's in and from his word. Daily read it for food, dear saints. Store it in your memory for vigilance and safety. Hold it constantly before you in communion with God and the power of his presence within you. Holy Spirit of Christ and of the Father is in us as believers. And I give you just one example of what you might consider doing. Perhaps, I can't, I'm sure a number of you read through the Bible every year and have different ways of reading it. But it occurred to me that one way you might benefit especially is by praying, reading and praying each stanza of the 119th Psalm. You know, that's the most elaborately worked out psalm in this altar. It's 176 verses. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and each letter gets a stanza of eight verses each until you get through the whole alphabet. And my suggestion is, pray each stanza to the Holy Spirit, who of course inspired it, realizing that it is He who has been given to believers, the Spirit, as a supreme benefit of Christ's work. And therefore, the Spirit is within you to make the word, the promises, the statutes, the laws, the ordinances, the judgments, the precepts, and the testimonies, those are the words that are used in that wonderful psalm, to describe God's word to us. He is able to make that fuel for your zeal to be like Christ, who walked precisely in all these ways in his life without sin. What a joy. Think of Christ as you read it. He is the law. He is the testimony. He is the statute. He is the one who fulfills it all. He is the temple. Destroy this temple in three days, I'll build it again, he said. Well, Mary went through this falling and rising. Every Christian does. Sometimes we go through it too many times, don't we? We fall, we stumble, but the Lord restores us if we're His. He brings us back because He's jealous of us. He loves us and He wants us to live for Him. So may that be your testimony this year as you go into it. a renewed zeal for listening to God's voice in his word, thinking on it, responding to him as a result of it, and with a bold testimony to live your life and to speak to others as the Lord gives you opportunity of what you have found in being raised again from a crushing fall to walk with him in light. Let's pray together. Our Father and our God, how we thank you for your word. And we thank you that in addition to being Son of God, Son of Mary, Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. So all the promises of God, and we were talking about them before, even in the prayer we prayed together, do we trust those promises? Are they more important to us than any other words imaginable because they are your words to us and they reflect the person of our Lord Jesus? We pray that you would give us a new hunger to be with you, to have this communion with you and fellowship with you. as couples that we would do this and reading together and speaking of these things and praying and thanking the Lord, as families, as laboring as Tom did for prayer for children who are astray or for others that we love, neighbors, friends. enemies, that, Lord, we might be lights in this dark world. For our time is short, no matter how young or old we are, and that our lives might count for you and be a blessing as you made yourself and your words that to your own dear mother. She came to see who you were, and there we see her at the end of what we know of her in this life with your siblings, half-siblings, with the saints. What a glory, what a joy. May it be ours, Lord, and we pray all this for Christ's sake.