Seize the Moment – Day 534
The Sacred Beauty of Motherhood!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, September 2.
How do we honor and protect the mothers of our communities?
A society that does not place a high value on motherhood is destined to fail. A culture that does not seek to protect the esteemed role of mothers will perish. One of the ways we attempt to do this is with maternal leave for working moms, which allows them to stay home with their newborn babies for a length of time. This is not a new concept!
Leviticus 12 describes the purification process for mothers after giving birth to their children. This chapter prescribes a time of purification for the mother to remain at home with the child—33 days for a boy and 66 days for a girl. While there are reasons for this, some of which revolve around the sacredness of blood as the life source, which we have seen as an essential reality to the sacrificial system, one good reason is that nothing was asked of the mother for this length of time except to nurse and care for her baby, while resting from her labor.
After this length of time, verses 6-7 commanded every mother to go to the tabernacle and make a sacrifice to God:
When the days of her purification are completed, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one year old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. Then he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her, and she shall be cleansed from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, whether a male or a female.
Seize the moment and honor life by protecting the sacred beauty of motherhood.