How Looking to Christ Lifts the Weight of Motherhood
I massage the back of my neck after gently setting my son into his bassinet. Months of nursing and constantly looking down to check on him have fatigued my weak neck muscles. I roll my head side to side, stretching out my taut shoulders one more time, then walk towards the kitchen in the soft morning light. Yet despite the stretches, my stiff muscles find little relief as I prepare for our day.
I look down as I mix oatmeal and scramble eggs.
I look down as I rinse the same dishes I washed yesterday.
I look down to help my toddler daughter get dressed.
Laundry. Emails. Another nursing session. In only a few hours, my neck and shoulders are even more tense than before I massaged them that morning. When my children at last play contentedly on the floor, I set my weary body on the couch. I look down again, but this time at a digital screen in the palm of my hand. Even if it strains my neck a bit more, maybe my brain will receive some relief as I scroll, tap, and skim on my phone.
“Mommy, will you look at me?” my daughter says, standing in front of me with her princess dress, stethoscope, stuffed unicorn, and messy blonde curls.
I look up and am overcome by a wave of guilt for all the time I spend looking down and forgetting to look up at those around me. I place my phone on the table and join my daughter in pretending to be a veterinarian princess. Yet even as I play with her, my heart is still burdened. My soul strains under the heavy expectations I feel to be a good mother, wife, and follower of Christ.
Looking at Myself
It’s not only my physical eyes that are often lowered; it’s my spiritual eyes as well. I am easily discouraged by my “navel gazing”—looking at myself until I can see each imperfection. Yet try as I might, I can’t seem to change my sinful attitudes and actions on my own. No matter what the voices around me say, I know deep down that I am not enough. Even when I look to others, comparing my life to theirs on social media, I’m often left in either despair or pride. These realities make my soul wearier than my aching neck.
The audience of the biblical book of Hebrews also knew this soul weariness. Their cultural heritage included a fifteen-hundred-year tradition of bloody animal sacrifice. Each time they entered the temple with their offering, they were reminded of their sinfulness and their inability to cleanse themselves. The blood shed on the altar would never take away the guilt in their hearts.
When Christ came as the better temple, high priest, and sacrifice, he did away with the Jewish sacrificial system by offering his body to bear the sins of many.[1] Through his once-for-all sacrifice, Christ cleansed believers from the inside out, allowing us into the presence of God. No more do those who love God bear the heavy burden of offerings, sacrifices, and feasts. Christ has taken that heavy burden on himself, replacing it with one that is light.[2] Yet when faced with trials and suffering, the first-century Hebrew Christians still struggled with returning to the religious regulations of their ancestors. They wearied themselves by going back to the law when they had freedom in Christ. They fixed their eyes on their own flailing faithfulness for endurance through hardship.
Looking to Jesus
In the wake of this spiritual exhaustion, the author of Hebrews encourages these believers to stop looking around or within and instead look to Jesus. He exhorts them: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2, emphasis added).
Like this early Hebrew Christian church, I am tempted to return to patterns of legalistic rule-following and people-pleasing. In the exhausting newborn days, I am constantly looking to myself for goodness and looking to others for approval. I place my hope in an uninterrupted quiet time, in more family discipleship resources, or in my ability to obey God’s commands perfectly.
However, the gospel reminds me I have already been made perfect by the blood of Christ and received approval from my heavenly Father. When I focus my spiritual eyes upward—not inward or outward—at the High Priest sitting on the throne, the tension in my heart releases at last. By taking my eyes off my perfection or the perfection of others and instead focusing my eyes on Christ’s perfection, I can finally experience rest from my heavy-laden labors.[3]
Each day, I am reminded to look up. I look up from folding laundry to meet my daughter’s eyes and laugh at her funny story. I look up from cleaning bottles to answer my son’s sweet babbles. But I also look up from my own efforts to make myself perfect, from my anxious toil. I look up to Jesus who has already made me perfect and yet is still sanctifying me to become more like him.[4] And when I look up, I feel the pressure relax and the weight lift off my shoulders.
[1] Hebrews 10:12
[2] Matthew 11:30
[3] Matthew 11:28
[4] Hebrews 10:14
