I can barely bring myself to picture Mary as she stood before the cross, but I love to picture Mary just a short time later. Her grief must have been intense in the day that elapsed between what we now call Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Her senses must have been overwhelmed, her body exhausted by grief, her brain in a fog.

I have never known a mother whose son was executed, much less a mother whose son was executed despite being provably innocent. Though I can’t ask, I have sometimes wondered: Is it typical for a mother to attend her son’s execution? 

Under such circumstances, would most mothers prefer to be there or would they prefer to be anywhere but there? And what if that execution was as drawn out, as humiliating, and as agonizing as a crucifixion? How could any mother bear to see her son so brutally mistreated—blood flowing, chest heaving, body trembling with the pain of it all? But then, how could any mother know her son was suffering so deeply, yet not be there to speak her words of comfort and reassurance, to be near him to the very end? Of all those who gathered around Jesus’ cross that day, surely no one’s pain was greater than Mary’s, for none of them loved Jesus more than his mother.

I can barely bring myself to picture Mary as she stood before the cross—or as she knelt in grief or collapsed in distress. But as I do my best, I can’t imagine she felt in that moment the way we feel about the cross today. I can’t imagine she said in that moment the things we say about it when we gather together on Sundays. When she surveyed that cross, did she, like Wesley, judge it wondrous? Did she, like Watts, think it dear? Did she, like Bowring , or like Crosby, pray for God to bring its scenes before her so her memories of it would also be fresh? Did she love, cherish, and cling to that old rugged cross? Surely not.

It is right that we thank God for the cross and good that we praise him for it. It is appropriate that we proclaim it as the greatest of all manifestations of the love and wisdom of God. But I very much doubt it looked that way to Mary. I very much doubt Mary looked up to Jesus as he hung on the cross and praised God for his wisdom, or that she thanked God for the blood of his Son (who was, of course, equally her son). I doubt God expected her to. 

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