The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross-25

6. Here we see a universal need exemplified.

How different is the Mary of scripture from the Mary of superstition! She was no proud Madonna but, like each of us, a member of a fallen race, a sinner both by nature and practice. Before the birth of Christ she declared, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:46,47). And now at the death of the Lord Jesus she is found before the cross. The word of God presents not the mother of Jesus as the queen of angels decked with diadem, but as one who herself rejoiced in a Saviour. It is true she is "blessed among (not ‘above’) women", and that by virtue of the high honour of being the mother of the Redeemer; yet was she human, a real member of our fallen race, a sinner needing a Saviour.

She stood by the cross. And as she stood there, the Saviour exclaimed, "Woman, behold thy Son!" (John 19:26). There, summed up in a single word, is expressed the need of every descendant of Adam - to turn the eye away from the world, off from self, and to look by faith to the Saviour that died for sinners. There is the divine epitome of the Way of Salvation. Deliverance from the wrath to come, forgiveness of sins, acceptance with God, is obtained not by deed of merit, not by good works, not by religious ordinances; no, salvation comes by beholding - "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world". Just as the serpent-bitten Israelites in the wilderness were healed by a look, by a look at that which Jehovah had appointed to be the object of their faith, so today, redemption from the guilt and power of sin, emancipation from the curse of the broken law and from the captivity of Satan, is to be found alone by faith in Christ, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14, 15). There is life in a look. Reader, have you thus beheld that divine Sufferer? Have you seen him dying on the cross the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God? Mary the mother of Christ needed to "behold" him, and so do you. Then look, look unto Christ and be ye saved.

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Seven_Sayings/sayings_03.htm