Why did Jesus send His mother with John?

Answer 1

There is no record of Joseph, Mary's husband dying before Christ was crucified. If he did then Christ told his mother to accept John as her son in place of himself, because he was about to die. John took upon himself the responsibility to look after Mary.

Answer 2

1)It was the Jewish custom in Our Lord's Time to make sure one's own mother is cared for, should the son die before her, & there nobody else to care for her.

2)Also to Consecrate her as the Mother of His Christian Church. That is why Catholics & many other Christian denominations venerate her as their Mother.

Answer 3

Being Mary's firstborn son and head of His father [Joseph's] household... unless she had otherwise remarried [which she evidently didn't], it fell to Jesus to see to her well-being. As Matthew Henry writes:

"Here are some remarkable circumstances of Jesus' death, more fully related than before. Pilate would not gratify the chief priests by allowing the writing to be altered; which was doubtless owing to a secret power of God upon his heart, that this statement of our Lord's character and authority might continue. Many things done by the Roman soldiers were fulfillments of the prophecies of the Old Testament. All things therein written shall be fulfilled. Christ tenderly provided for his mother at his death. Sometimes, when God removes one comfort from us, he raises up another for us, where we looked not for it. Christ's example teaches all men to honour their parents in life and death; to provide for their wants, and to promote their comfort by every means in their power..." (Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary: John 19:19-30)

Both as the good and responsible firstborn son of His widowed mother... as well as the One who wrote in the stone tablet with His own finger [Ex.31:18]; "honor thy father and thy mother..." [Ex.20:12] -- even in the face of His excruciating mortal death, Jesus didn't fail to shirk His duty, and appoint one to watch over and provide for her.

Why John?

We're told that Jesus had an affinity for John that was different from the other disciples. Perhaps John was more nurturing and mature than the others... as though Jesus knew he could trust him to perform that for which he commissioned him in that distressing moment of time as she watched her son suffer and die.

There is also the passages that indicate in hindsight that John was to live longer than the other disciples [John 21:20-24... eventually to record his vision of 'the Revelation of Jesus'; exiled on the Isle of Patmos].

Jesus knew of John's later commission on Patmos, and that he would live long enough to see to His mother's comfort in her latter years... and, no doubt, to her final funeral arrangements.

It seems obvious that, among all the people throughout Judaea with whom Jesus was acquainted and knew... John ["the disciple whom Jesus loved"] was the natural choice.

Answer 4

The story of Jesus entrusting the care of his mother to the 'disciple whom Jesus loved', traditionally assumed to be John, occurs only in John's Gospel. The other gospels say that Mary and those of Jesus' acquaintance stood afar off, leaving no room for Mary or any disciple to be near the cross.

John's Gospel was originally anonymous, and scholars say that it could not have been written by an eyewitness to the events it portrays, so we should try to understand why the author departed so greatly from the accounts in the three other gospels. Elaine Pagels says that in this Gospel there is a theme of comparing Peter and the 'disciple whom Jesus loved', with the unknown disciple always besting Peter in some way. By having Jesus entrust the care of his mother to the disciple, the author was demonstrating in the clearest way possible that Peter was not most loved of Jesus' disciples. There appears to have been, at the time of writing, a cult of excessive veneration of Peter, and this theme has overcome that.

Answer 5

Jesus had no siblings to whom the responsibility of Mary's care would fall so Jesus chose John, the youngest of the apostles, as her caretaker.