On Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day. It is a great occasion to think about those who gave birth to us, raised us, and nurtured us, whether our biological mother, an adoption mother, a foster mother, or other care givers like grandmothers or aunts.

Have you ever thought about the origin of your life, or of all human life? We all have genetic material from our two biological parents. Of our 46 chromosomes, which contain the blueprints for our development from conception to the last breath, 23 are from your father and 23 are from you mother.

Having two sets of chromosomes is a blessing, as the body has two options for all that has to be taken care of. Our parents each had two parents, and our grandparents had two parents each, as did their parents, and the line goes on to the beginning of human life on earth.

So we have two parents, four grandparents, eight grand grandparents, 16 grand grandparents and so on. The number doubles every generation. After ten generations (if they all were 25 years old when they had their children, that is 250 years ago, just the first generation after the United States of America got their independence).

Going back to that generation we theoretically had 1,024 ancestors, who each had 250 years earlier 1,024 ancestors themselves, which gets us to 1,048,576 ancestors 500 years ago from today (around the time of Martin Luther’s Reformation), another 500 years earlier, thus about the year 1026, (about when the Viking, Leif Erikson, reached “Vinland” (Newfoundland, Canada), establishing the first European presence in North America) we theoretically had the square of this sum of ancestors, thus unbelievable 1,099,511,627,776 (about 1,100 billion) ancestors.

However, there were not so many people alive back then, today we just have about 8 billion people. It is estimated that only 50 million to 60 million people lived back then. We don’t have to go further back to make a point.

The only way this works is that people actually again and again have married and still today marry people who have common ancestors already. It also means that we are all related in many more ways then we often realise. Guess how much of our genetic code is shared?

I checked it on Google: “The DNA of any two humans on Earth is approximately 99.9 per cent identical. This means only about 0.1 per cent of our genetic code accounts for all individual differences, such as eye colour, height, and disease risk. While this shared percentage is high, it covers over 3 billion base pairs of DNA.” (Google refers to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences)

You share with any person in the world 99.9 per cent of your DNA! Differences like gender, height, hair colour, skin tone … they are determined by the remaining 0.1 per cent. This is why scientists today say that there are actually no different races among us, the differences are too small to divide into races. When it comes to organ donation, race is not an issue.

When the authors of the Bible tried to explain how human life began, they did not have those facts. Even if God had told them, they could not have understood it, nor would have the people who read or listened to the Bible stories.

God had the Bible written not only for 21st century scientific Christians, but also for the people thousands of years ago. Thus the Bible often explains complicated facts in easy to understand images of the world around those folks.

Though they did not know about genetics or numbers bigger than a couple of thousands, they knew about the biological relationship of all human beings. Already at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 3:20 we can read: “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” (NIV)

The names Adam and Eve just mean that. Adam actually means man/human and Eve means mother/living. With the image of two concrete people, Adam and Eve, the Bible tries to explain that we all have the same roots, and that fathers and mothers are most important.

Without mothers there would be no life, without fathers there would be no humans. So it is only right to honour our parents with special days, first the mothers on Mother’s Day, and then in June the fathers on Father’s Day.

The first of the Ten Commandment that has to do with our relations with other humans (the first three or four commandments, depending how you count, deal with our relationship with God) says: “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)

It is the only commandment connected with a promise. Those who honour their own (elderly) parents have a chance to be honoured by their children as well, when they get older, as children learn more from what you are doing than what you are saying.

Thus, this is not just a commandment for children to behave and listen to the parents, but it is for adults to respect the elderly, those who have worked hard for most of their life to provide for us and make sure we might have a decent if not even better life then them.

To honour them is even more than just respect. It means to continue the relationship even beyond the point when we need them. They have so much experience, wisdom and knowledge we can still profit from, and they deserve our reverence and respect.

My mother passed last October at age 87. She had raised seven children, had a loving relationship with her 18 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. She was a blessing for all of us.

She had been the centre of the large family. The same is true for so many other mothers, whether they have grandchildren or not.

Mothers are the image of caring love. In Isaiah 66:13 God says: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you”. The Apostle Paul compares his mission with that of a mother in 1 Thessalonians 2:7: “ … we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children”.

This year, my daughter Christine is visiting us for Mother’s Day with our granddaughter Ruby. What a joy to see the next generation grow up.

It reminds me that mothers are the true heroes in our world. Mothers are not just nurturers, but they carried a child in their womb for about nine months, giving up on many things that they know are not beneficial for the unborn.

Birth is a major event, and though it can be the most exciting event, it definitely is painful and even still today connected with a lot of risks for the life and health of the mother.

Then they nurse and raise the children, still with lots of sacrifice, protect and help the children for decades. They deserve our highest respect and honour, though in reality they are often disadvantaged in our society like when it comes to jobs and wages.

Mothers truly are the heroes among us. I am glad God chose the union of love to procreate ever new generations. I love seeing young mothers spend time with their children, middle-aged mothers guide their young adult children, and old age mothers still praying for their children and grandchildren and caring as much as they can.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, whether young or older, biological, adopting, fostering, spiritual or in so many other ways involved in the lives of our children. We are proud of you and thankful. This one day in the year is just a symbol for the honour you deserve every single day of the year.

• Karsten Decker was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s