(5.) Women and Children First: God Identifies with Women and Womanhood

(5.) Women and Children First: God Identifies with Women and Womanhood. 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37).

Jesus finally managed to catch His breath after His seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees. He was speaking all this time in the Temple, and so His mind turned to the lost city of Jerusalem, spiritually lost. Jesus admonished the Holy City at this point for its persecution of the earlier prophets. Jesus sorrowfully noted that the messengers of God were badly mistreated in Jerusalem, even stoned and otherwise murdered. What Jesus most feared had happened… the spiritually unfruitful Temple leadership has unfortunately spread to the people. And the result is that the whole city will soon be abandoned by God and emptied of spiritual life. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus laments. “I see your plight, I see your lost and confused children, and I want to gather you under my wings like a mother hen. But you wouldn’t let me! And soon I will be another Prophet killed by the Temple authorities, another example of how you have treated your prophets in the past. You won’t see me again until I return at the Last Day, and you will all surely declare, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Matthew 23:37-39).

The Maternal Side of the Father. It shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus identified with womanly attributes, or that the Lord God is occasionally referred to in feminine terms. All through Scripture, it is readily apparent that God is a Father with a mother’s heart, that Father God has a powerful maternal side to His love for us:

1. Creation. Creator God fashioned the man and the woman, male and female, after His likeness and image (Genesis 1:27). So it is reasonable to say that the distinctively feminine attributes built into the woman came from God. Our Creator was/is the source of all the distinctive qualities of a woman. From where else could she have been given her feminine attributes?
2. Moses. The Lord’s love is compared to both a father and a mother in the second Song of  Moses, Deuteronomy 32: 18, “You neglected the Rock who had fathered you, you forgot the God who gave you birth.” God’s parental love and His people’s rejection of that love highlight just how thoughtless the sins of Israel truly were.
3. Isaiah. This great prophet in particular liked highlighting the maternal side of the Father. In 42:14, the Lord proclaims, “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held Myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and I pant.” In 49:14-16, the Lord said to Israel through Isaiah, “Zion has said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me!’ But I say, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” And who could forget the profound, tender words of encouragement the Lord spoke in 66:13, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”
4. Psalmists. So many of the psalmists declare the tenderness of God’s love and refer to Him in feminine terms. Ps. 123:2-3 says, “The way I love you is like the way a maid waits for the orders of her mistress, carefully observing her slightest gesture. In the same way we look to you, Lord, waiting for our God to pour out His mercy upon us.” The poignant Psalm 131 says in part, “Like a contented child who sits on his mother’s lap, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord.”
5. Hosea. And now we see the biblical origin of the classic “mama bear’ attribute of Father God, who protects His people like a mother with her children. “…. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip open their chest!” (Hosea 13:8).
6. Womb. Since the Hebrew word for mercy and compassion, “rachem,” comes from the root word for “womb,” it is easy to believe that there is something motherly about the Father’s care and compassion for each of us. God’s compassion is the same as that of a mother who loves the child she has carried and borne. Rachem is intended to mean “mercy-womb.” God formed each of us with rachem when we were mere unborns, and we were conceived and nourished within His rachem, His mercy-womb. Just as the developing baby utterly depends on a mercy-womb, God wants Himself to be experienced as our womb-sanctuary, our safe place in Him, our refuge and shelter. God Himself yearns to be experienced as a womb of mercy for each of us, a refuge and shelter and safe haven. The purpose of our lives is to live in God’s rachem, God’s womb of love.
7. Bosom. “No one has ever seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made Him known.” (John 1:18). The idea of the bosom leans toward a feminine attribute. The Greek word is “kolpon,” and is the mysterious place deep in God’s heart that is inaccessible to everyone except His Son. Of course, since the Father and Son are there, their Holy Spirit is there as well. This room deep in His heart’s innards is the only one with the door marked “Private.” Bosom was the innermost place of the deepest relationship possible; the place of mystery inside of God where the profound union takes place; where they enjoy an complete intimate knowledge of Each Other that is reciprocal; the spiritual “womb” deep in God’s heart of hearts from which Someone is “brought forth;” the place of deepest affection, where the intimacy is reserved for the Three who are in union; it is where the Three-in-One are truly “with” each other at the deepest level possible.  In God’s heart, which is utterly holy throughout, His bosom would be considered the “Holy of Holies.”
8. Begotten. In the verse above, John 1:18, we see another birthing word, “monogenes.” Begotten literally means ‘unique birth,’ a type of birthing that was truly one-of-a-kind. This is a birthing word for one who has been maternally fathered forth, revealed to the world in a completely unique way. For Jesus to be begotten means He wasn’t conceived, He wasn’t created, and there was no beginning point with Him. Instead, Jesus is eternal and was uniquely brought forth from God’s bosom in order to reveal the Father in a new way to the world. In other words, Jesus was brought forth from the bosom of the Father so that Jesus could bring forth the Father into a world that has never seen Him. So, in a sense, both Father and Son have been brought forth.
9. Born from Above. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God… Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, 5). This entire concept is maternal and is a womanly reference to salvation itself. Somehow we are saved only after going through a birthing process with God. Interesting. It’s almost as if God Himself has a spiritual womb. The concept of being “born again” wasn’t anything new to Nicodemus, since it is an old Jewish concept. According to Judaism at that time, a practicing Jew was said to be “born again” after each of these four occasions: after a bar mitzvah at 13 years of age; after becoming married; after one becomes a rabbi; and after one is named the head of a rabbinic school. After each of those occasions, one is pronounced “born again”. Nicodemus met all four of those requirements to be born again, but of course those requirements were a natural program designed by man. There was nothing supernatural about being born again like that, it was just a natural part of their faith. When Nicodemus heard from Jesus that he needed to be born from above, he didn’t know what to think. Born from above? Yes, said Jesus, only this time it is a spiritual rebirth from above, not an ordinary rebirth according to our religion. Being truly born anew is spiritual and supernatural. Now Nicodemus might be thinking, wait a minute, is God bearing children in His kingdom? Is that what you mean?
10. Seeking the Lost.  “There was once a woman who had ten valuable silver coins. When she lost one of them, she swept her entire house, diligently searching every corner of her house for that one lost coin. When she finally found it, she gathered all her friends and neighbors for a celebration, telling them, ‘’Come and celebrate with me! I had lost my precious silver coin, but now I’ve found it!’ That’s the way God responds every time one lost sinner repents and turns to Him. He says to all His angels, ‘Let’s have a joyous celebration, for the one who was lost I have found!” (Luke 15:8-10). The woman in this parable is a metaphor for God. It would have been controversial to picture God as a woman, especially around the religious leaders. Upon hearing this little story, the Pharisees would probably have gone on a tirade. God represented by a woman? Outrageous! Evidently the scholars of Torah had forgotten all the references in the Hebrew Bible to the maternal attributes of God. Jesus’ story would have offended the sensibilities of these scholars, even though there is clear Scriptural precedence for the comparison. One wonders how they would have reacted later to Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem, wishing He were a mother hen, gathering all her lost chicks around her!

The Son of God Fleshed Out the Heart of Father God. “Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took His twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager, Susanna, and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and His disciples.” (Luke 8:1-3).

• The Rebel Jesus. Jesus literally went out His way to break social barriers during His public ministry. He was an equal opportunity healer, preacher, and teacher. He loved every person He met with divine love, male or female, boy or girl. He seemed to relish the idea of underlining the fact that men and women are equal in the eyes of God and will remain equal in the New Kingdom. Despite the limits put on women, He turned the culture on its head by publicly honoring women, by giving them His undivided attention, by holding up their dignity as a full person made in the image of God. Unlike the rabbinic culture in the 1st Century, He respected their intelligence, whether talking theology with the woman at the well or teaching Torah to Mary of Bethany. He strengthened women’s status in the home by His teaching on adultery, divorce and marriage (Matt. 5 and 19). He encouraged women to be His disciples and follow Him throughout His ministry and was comfortable having a large group of women support Him wherever He went. He loved teaching Scripture to women, even though women were not allowed to be taught by a rabbi. Jesus remained poised to heal whoever was in need, whether woman or man. He would make up stories and parables with women as the main characters, highlighting their important presence in God’s narrative. His attitude toward women was countercultural at the time, and there was no hesitation on His part to invite women wholeheartedly into His life and ministry.
• That Era’s Mixed Feelings About Women. During that time in Israel, the status of women was a mixed bag. On the one hand, they were able to own their own home, to travel freely, and to manage their own finances. On the other hand, women were not allowed to testify in court and had limited access to the Temple in Jerusalem. They also couldn’t physically touch the Torah and were not to be mentored by a rabbi. There were many social barriers, since women who were menstruating were considered ceremonially unclean and couldn’t be touched. Men were simply not allowed to touch any woman, since that man wouldn’t know if the woman was having her period, and he didn’t want to be made ritually unclean. So men were not allowed to even greet a woman in public, no less touch them. Thus, women were never given an opportunity to talk with a man in public, or be seen in conversation with a man in a public setting. So while women could be independently wealthy, they nonetheless were usually treated as subordinates, unworthy of serious attention, and relatively unimportant.
• Jesus Honored Women. But Jesus intentionally turned that part of rabbinic law on its head. He touched women, and He let them touch Him. He freely engaged with women in conversation. He welcomed women to be a part of his itinerant following and received their financial support. Jesus didn’t treat women with that customary sense of subordination. He even called a woman a “daughter of Abraham,” implying an equal standing with the “sons of Abraham” (Luke 13). There is no doubt that Jesus elevated women to a place of honor and respect by word and example. It makes sense… Jesus was merely loving and respecting those wonderful creatures that He designed as co-creator.