As Mother’s Day approaches, many pastors may wrestle with how to handle this holiday and or other holidays in their preaching calendar. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has some helpful advice:
I would lay it down as a rule that there are special occasions which should always be observed. At this point I have the temerity to express a criticism of the Puritans. I believe in preaching special sermons on Christmas Day and during the Advent season; I also believe in preaching special sermons on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday.
How do I justify this? Well, why did the Puritans object to it? The answer is, of course, that they objected to these special occasions because of their violent reaction to Roman Catholicism. The Roman catholicas had turned the celebration of the birth of our Lord into a Mass; and so the Puritans, being creatures of reactions, as we all are, tended to react too violently, with the result that their desire to get rid of everything savouring in any way of the Mass, and everything else associated with Roman Catholic thinking, went to the other extreme and opposed and observance of these days.
While I fully understand their attitude and entirely sympathize with it in general, I nevertheless think they were mistaken…Surely the great danger today, and especially in certain circles, is over-intellectualism.
– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers p. 204
