Mark 3:31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent for him, calling him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” 33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. 34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Introduction
Relationship to Jesus
How is your relationship with Jesus going? Not your relationship with God in general, but specifically, how is your relationship lately with the second member of the Trinity? When you post about a relationship on Facebook, one of the categories is “It’s complicated.” If you ever see a teenager post “In a relationship,” you watch, and within a few weeks they will change the status from “in a relationship” to, “it’s complicated.” If we posted about our relationship with Jesus we’d have to use that designation (it’s complicated) – not for the same reason the teens use it, but because it really is a complex, multi-faceted relationship. It’s complex. As your Savior, you look to him for salvation and forgiveness of sins. As your King, you bow before his authority. As your Creator, you submit to him as the owner of your life. As your Mediator, you look to him for your justification. As the Son of God, you worship him. As the Word of God, you look to him for truth and light and guidance and instruction. As the perfect Man, you look to him as your example.
Your relationship with Jesus might be stronger in some of those areas than in others. But there is one aspect of your relationship with him that, if you’re like most Christians, you never think about, never put any effort into it, and never appreciate it. In fact, there may be several in this room right now who don’t even know about it. And yet, it is not only taught in Scripture, but it is emphasized, and Jesus is going to make a very dramatic point of it in today’s text.
Arrival
Mark 3:31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived.
Just to refresh your memory, Mark is showing us the various responses to Jesus’ ministry. The Scribes said he was Satanic, and his family said he was insane. That’s not as bad as saying he’s satanic, but it’s still a clear rejection of Jesus’ claims. They obviously don’t believe Jesus is who he claimed to be. If someone thinks he’s God and he’s not, then he’s a nutcase. Like the guy in the mental hospital who said, “I’m Jesus.” And the guy in the next bed says, “Who told you that?” “God did!” And he says, “Oh no I didn’t.” If someone claims to be God and you put him in a psych ward, that means you don’t believe his claims.
Loss of Family
So this is a sad scene. It would be painful for any of us - to have your family going around saying you’re insane. But for Jesus - none of us love our families like Jesus loved his. And the more you love someone the more it hurts when they reject you. So we can scarcely imagine how painful this must have been for him.
But it’s a great encouragement to those of us who have lost relationships because of our faith, isn’t it? When Jesus said we must be ready to lose our families if need be to follow him, he wasn’t asking us to do anything he didn’t do. If you have ever been rejected by family or friends because of your faith, Jesus has personally been through that.
And not just your family, but the world in general.
John 15:18 If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
Joy Behar was just in the news for calling Vice President Pence insane because of his believing he can interact with God in prayer. That’s nothing new – the world has been calling followers of Christ insane for 2000 years. That’s part of how we bear the sufferings of Christ.
Mary
So Jesus’ brothers thought he was a lunatic. But what about Mary – did she think that? That’s hard to imagine. She definitely believed in the virgin birth, right? If there is one person in history that didn’t doubt the virgin birth it was Mary. Everything we read about Mary at the time of Jesus’ birth makes it sound like she believed. And when John 7:5 says that his brothers did not believe in him, it just says, “brothers” not “mother and brothers.” So maybe she’s tagging along even though she doesn’t agree with the brothers’ conclusion. Or maybe she had a temporary lapse in her faith, kind of like John the Baptist. We don’t know for sure. But we know at least his brothers thought he was insane. The scribes said he was satanic, and his family thought he was insane.
Refutation of the Insanity Verdict
Now, in the last several verses Jesus refuted the scribes’ claim that he was satanic. So now is he going to refute his family’s claim that he was insane? I think he already did. He effectively refuted both accusations in one shot because when Jesus was dismantling the Scribes’ position with one devastating logical argument after another, I don’t know about you, but he seemed pretty lucid to me.
Who is really insane? The man who can confound the smartest scholars of the day every single time with a few sentences off the top of his head? Or the people who see a man do that and decide he’s insane? If someone looks at Jesus’ words – teachings that have captivated humanity for 2000 years, and have comforted and instructed and built up men and women in every culture in every era and transformed millions of lives - they look at those words and conclude that the author of those words was insane, I think we know where the mental deficiency lies.
Arrival
So, back in v.21 Jesus’ family decided to come take Jesus into custody, and now, 10 verses later, they finally arrive. Here they come. Mark gets real dramatic here and uses present tense verbs. Literally, it’s 31 And Jesus’ mother and brothers are arriving. he wants you to see it in your mind’s eye. Here they come – his brother James, Joseph, Judas, Simon, and there’s Mary. No mention of whether his sisters were there.
What does Jesus say when he sees them? He never does see them because they don’t come in.
31 …Standing outside, they sent for him, calling him.
Why didn’t they go inside? They couldn’t. The house was so jam packed, they couldn’t even get in the door (Lk.8:9). And they may not have even wanted to go in anyway. If they are going to tell Jesus he’s insane and try to drag him away, I doubt they wanted to do that in front of all Jesus’ followers. It’s not going to go over very well.
Outsiders
So here the family is, standing outside and the crowd is inside. That’s a striking scene because normally when you’re at your house, it’s the family on the inside and the crowds on the outside. Here it’s reversed. And it’s more than just an odd scene. It’s a picture of a profound spiritual reality that Jesus is about to teach regarding outsiders and insiders and the family of God. And in the next chapter, Jesus picks up this same language of insiders and outsiders to describe who gets the secrets of the kingdom (4:11).
Redefining Family
Jesus’ Surprising Response
31 … they sent for him, calling him.
So they get up to the fringe of the crowd outside the door, and they grab someone, “Hey, can you please get word to Jesus that his mother and brothers are here to see him?” And that guy says, “Sure,” and he passes it along, word moves through until the ones close to Jesus gets it.
32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they are telling him, “Behold. Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
The behold means the disciples think it’s a fairly big deal that his mom is here. And so they interrupt whatever Jesus was saying to let him know.
Jesus put up his hand: “Please hold your questions and comments to the end.” No, he allows whatever he was saying to be interrupted. Which is good, because whatever he had been teaching didn’t even make it into Scripture, but this interruption did. Some of his most wonderful teachings came in moments of interruption.
And this is one that only Jesus could see as a teachable moment. It’s about the most ordinary circumstance you can have in life. If this happened to me, I’d say, “Ok, I’ll be right out” and that would be the end of it.
And even if I did think, “Oh, here’s a chance to teach about family,” what would I say? Maybe something about the importance of family as the most basic building block of the society, or about how the disintegration of the nuclear family is destroying our culture. That’s not the direction Jesus goes. In fact, he seems to go in the opposite direction. As usual, Jesus is full of surprises.
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. 34 Then he looked around at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Behold! ...
He uses the word they just used. They said, “Behold, your family is here.” He says, “You want to behold something? Behold this: 34 …Behold, Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Meanwhile Mary and the brothers are outside waiting … waiting. Finally someone squeezes out the front door. “Is he coming out?” “Um, I don’t think so.” “Well, what did he say?” “He, uh, made a remark about family.” “Why isn’t he coming out? Tell him his mother is here.” “We did. But when we said that, he pointed to his disciples and said ‘Here are my mother and my brothers.’” Mary’s face turns white. “I’m sorry Mary – I don’t know what got into him.” They stand there in stunned silence.
The importance of family, and the shame associated with any kind of disowning of family in that culture. This was a shock to say the least.
Finally one of them turns, starts walking, the others follow, and they head back to Nazareth. Must have been an interesting 30 mile walk home.
Did this jar his family into realizing their error? No, not yet. In ch.6 we’ll see that he still has no honor among his own family (Mark 6:4).
Jesus Establishing a New Family
So what is Jesus doing here? Is he just upset with his family for saying he’s crazy? No. He loved his family. What Jesus is doing here is something much bigger than anything to do with his earthly family. Jesus is doing the same thing here with the family that he did right before this with the nation of Israel. In appointing the 12, Jesus was recreating the nation of Israel. And here he is doing the same thing with an even more basic institution – the family. This kingdom Jesus has been proclaiming – it’s a holy nation, and it’s a family. Out of the ashes of his earthly family, a new family bursts out of the limits of blood relations that will gather in millions.
100-Fold Family
And later on in ch.10 Jesus is going to offer that family as the reward that you get when you lose your earthly family for his sake. You have to say goodbye to your mom and dad – Jesus gives you 100 moms and dads and brothers and sisters in the church. There is so much we could say about that, but I’m going to hold off until we get to ch.10. In chapter 10 the focus is on our relationship to one another as family, but the emphasis here in this passage is more on our relationship with Jesus as our brother and son (believe it or not), and so that’s where we’ll focus tonight.
Water is Thicker than Blood
34 he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Behold. Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Replacement?
Now, was Jesus completely disowning his family? Is this replacement theology – where the spiritual family replaces the physical family altogether? No. The physical family still matters. Later in this book Jesus is going to forbid divorce, and he’ll talk about honoring your father and mother. Someone who doesn’t provide for his physical family is worse than an unebleiver. And when Jesus was hanging on the cross he tells John to take care of Mary. There were plenty of other widows in Israel who needed help, but Jesus didn’t assign one of his disciples to care for them. So Jesus is leaving the physical institution in place, but he is also creating a much, much greater form of it that supersedes it in importance and in every other way.
More Important
You’ve heard blood is thicker than water? Not in this kingdom – the water of baptism is way thicker than blood. When Jesus’ brothers James and Jude later on write books of the Bible, they introduce themselves not as Jesus’ brothers, but as his servants. Why? Because that’s a higher credential. Being Jesus’ blood brother is irrelevant and of no consequence in comparison with being his servant and follower.
People think they are Christians because they grew up in a Christian home. No one ever grew up in a home that was more Christian than Christ’s siblings. But none of them were included in the kingdom until they placed their faith in Jesus. If not even Mary herself could play the family card, no one can.
The Roman Catholic Church has made much of Mary’s relationship with Jesus as his physical mother. But Jesus corrected that attitude in Luke 11.
Luke 11:27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." 28 He replied, "On the contrary. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
If you think Mary was special because she gave birth to Jesus, anyone who follows Jesus is more special. Your natural family is important, but not ultimate. And it’s important for us to hear that, because you can make an idol out of family in the Christian world and have no stigma at all. In fact, you could write a book at teach others how to do it. Nothing ever infringes on family time. Almost no investment in their spiritual siblings because all their time is caught up with their physical family. The family never makes any sacrifices for the church.
When you hear people give their testimony of how they became a Christian, they might say, “I used to live for money in my past life, but now I live for Christ.” Or “I used to live for work…” or “I used to live for sex/recreation/etc.” But I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, “I used to live for family – family was the most important thing in my life, but then I became a Christian and repented of that.” We act as if this passage didn’t even exist.
Who Are the Insiders?
So who qualifies as a member of Jesus’ family? Everyone? Did Jesus teach the universal brotherhood of all mankind like the Unitarian religion teaches? No, it’s only the insiders. At first it seems kind of harsh, when we see Jesus’ family walking away. First we’re sad when Jesus’ family is rejecting him, but now it’s even sadder when it looks like Jesus is rejecting them. They are standing outside and his real family is on the inside.
But Jesus isn’t shutting them out. In fact, in the very next breath Jesus throws the doors of his household wide open not only to them, but to anyone in the whole world who is willing. And after his resurrection, his brothers walk through that door.
1) Will of God
So who are the insiders? Jesus describe them in two ways. One is that they do the will of God.
35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.
The thing that makes blood relatives family is shared DNA. The thing that makes spiritual relatives family is that our lives revolve around God’s will. We want whatever God wants. We’re like Jesus.
John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
But how do you know what God’s will is? This is an important question, because everything is riding on whether or not you do God’s will.
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father
You’d better know what God’s will is, because if you don’t do his will, you will not go to heaven. But if you do his will, you’re in.
2) Follow Christ
So that’s one way of describing the insiders. The other way of describing the same group is in v.34.
34 Then he looked around at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”
Who are the insiders? His followers. He points to all his disciples – not just the 12, but men, women, young, old – all his followers, and says all of them are his brothers and sisters and mothers.
So what does that tell you about what God’s will is? if v.34 says that his family is made up of Christ followers, and the next verse says his family is made up of whoever does God’s will, that means being a follower of Christ equals doings God’s will.
No doubt both the Scribes thought they were doing God’s will. But nobody is doing God’s will if they are not a follower of Christ. And every follower of Christ is doing God’s will.
“But what if I’m a follower of Christ, but I’m just really not very good at following him? I constantly stumble and fail – am I still in? If you want the answer to that question just watch these very disciples throughout the rest of the book. When Jesus calls them family here in ch.4, he’s not talking about spiritual giants. You have to scour the rest of the book to find them ever doing anything right. They were men of little faith and hard hearts. But they followed Christ, so they were in God’s will.
Followers, not Listeners
What about the crowds, who love his teaching and comes to him for healing, but they don’t follow him? Are they included? No. Jesus will explain that in ch.4. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you are doing God’s will for your life.
Decision Making
And that’s great news for people who are struggling to discover God’s will for their life. God’s will isn’t a hidden mystery that is discoverable only to the most spiritual people. Every Christian knows and does God’s will. If you strive to follow Christ, and you repent when you fail to follow him, you are right in the center of God’s will.
Usually when people talk about seeking God’s will, it’s in a situation where they have a hard decision between two good options. Neither one is sinful, but they are trying to pick the one that will have the best outcome. The Bible doesn’t really use the terminology of God’s will for decisions like that. It uses terminology of wisdom.
Does wisdom matter? Yes, but not nearly as much as holiness. Very often when people say, “I’m really seeking to discover God’s will in this matter,” it has nothing to do with holiness. Really they just want God to reveal to them which option would result in the least amount of hardship and trouble and the greatest temporal rewards. But if you think you’re seeking God’s will when really your seeking to avoid suffering as much as possible, then you need to re-read 1 Peter 4.
1 Peter 4:1 he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
Seeking God’s will has nothing to do with avoiding suffering, nor is it about seeking worldly comforts.
1 John 2:17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Think of it this way: if you are following Christ (striving to obey him, repenting when you disobey), that’s like being on the right interstate going the right direction. And if you’re on the Interstate, you’re in God’s will. Issues like what career path to take, where to live, which Christian to marry, what house to buy – those decisions are like deciding which lane to drive in. If you make a dumb decision in your career path, but you still pursue holiness, you might be in a lane that has some potholes, but you’re still in God’s will. And hitting those potholes might do you more good ultimately than the smooth pavement in lane #2 would have done you. A smoother ride doesn’t always mean a better life.
Jesus Our Brother/Son
There’s no way we can do any kind of justice to the doctrine of the brotherhood of Jesus in one sermon.
High Priest
We could do a whole sermon on Hebrews 2, which explains how Jesus became our brother in order to be the ideal high priest for us (Heb.2:10-18). He had to be made like his brothers in every way and personally experience all that we experience. And it talks about how Jesus is not one bit ashamed to be called your brother.
The Glorification of Mankind
Or earlier in that chapter he explains how Jesus became our brother in order to fulfill God’s plan for the exaltation of the human race. Remember our study of Psalm 8? God’s plan was for man to rule over the creation, but that’s not happening. So Jesus fulfills that for mankind by becoming our brother and reigning over the creation, and he will eventually elevate us to his side to reign with him (Hebrews 2:6-9).
Jesus had to become our brother so that he could die. As God he couldn’t die, so he became our brother so he could die in our place, and then be exalted in our place.
The Brotherhood Aspect of Your Relationship with Christ
We don’t have time to cover all that tonight, so let’s just focus on the relational aspect. How is your sibling relationship with Christ going? I can remember the first time I ever actually paid attention to the lyrics of the hymn Joyful Joyful. There is a line in that hymn that says, “God our Father Christ our brother…” The first time I noticed that line, it sounded like blasphemy to me. Christ my brother? Christ is my King! He my Lord and Master and Creator – not my brother. I didn’t know the Bible taught this, and going by my own impressions, it just didn’t seem right at all. It seemed wrong because brotherhood is a peer kind of relationship. Your parents are over you; your siblings are beside you - at your level. This whole book Mark has been portraying Jesus as the unique Son of God - elevated above all mankind it glorious ways. So for him to describe our relationship with him with a horizontal, sibling kind of status is unexpected to say the least.
Companionship
But none of that is a problem if you just realize that everything the rest of the Bible says about Jesus’ supreme authority over us still stands. He’s still our Lord and God and King and Owner and Master. But there are aspects of brotherly love that he also wants to share with us.
And you can see that if you watch his friendship with his disciples. He called the 12, and it says he appointed them that they might be with him. That was for training, but it wasn’t only for training. It was also companionship. There is no indication that Jesus had any other friends besides his disciples. Most big shots are only friends with other big shots. But these guys were anything but big shots. They weren’t even medium shots. They were nobodies, but when Jesus took some time off for rest, it was with them. John 13:1 He loved them to the end. And in his darkest hour, the night before he died, he longed for their companionship. He so wanted them to just stay up with him and pray with him – it almost sounds like he needed them.
Jesus Wants Your Companionship
And if you’re a follower of Christ, did you know that Jesus desires that kind of love from you? When you’re talking to the big boss at work, you’re all business. But with the guys out on the loading dock, you’ll let your hair down a little more. And you’re never more relaxed than with your sister or brother. There is a side of my personality that probably no one other than my sisters and brother have ever really seen. I haven’t known anyone as long as I’ve known them.
Jesus wants that part of your love too. He wants your worship, he wants your awe, he wants your fear and reverence and obedience – but he also wants you as a sister, or brother. He wants that unique kind of familiar, warm, comfortable, close, life-long love from you, where you share the really little things of life. That the bond of brotherhood, camaraderie, family loyalty, family priority.
Jesus Loves Us That Way
So he wants our sibling-type love, but more important than that, we get that kind of love from him. He’s the perfect older brother. What does an older brother do? When I was growing up, my older brother was a unique combination of companion, teacher, and protector. We shared a bedroom, and we talked about things I never talked with anyone else about. I’ll never forget the day I was flying a kite with my older brother and we ran into Mark Washington, who was a bully who absolutely terrorized me. So I stepped behind my brother, and that was the only time I ever felt safe in the presence of Mark Washington (even though he probably could have clobbered both me and Donny). But Donny stood up to him and nothing happened.
God made brothers to be protective – especially of their sisters. Another thing I’ll never forget – when we were kids, something dropped off the shelf in our kitchen and landed on my little sister Carolyn’s toe. And she cried so hard, the pain I felt in my heart was almost unbearable. To this day I can’t stand to even think about it. And even more unbearable was the fact that I couldn’t do anything to help her.
That’s the natural kind of protective love that God planted in elder brothers for their siblings. If you’re one of Jesus’ followers, did you know that he has that kind of love for you? When something lands on your toe, or something threatens you, he feels that special, brotherly compassion, and he will put himself between you and danger. And more importantly, he’s strong enough to protect you and shield you from any spiritual threat if you just jump behind him.
Another thing I remember about my brother was all the things he taught me. He taught me how to fly a kite, he sparked my interest in science because he was always teaching me interesting things about the creation. I remember one time he had explained inertia to me. And not long after that I was on the sledding hill near our house and some older kids were there – high school students, and I made a comment about how I wanted to get a lot of inertia so I could slide really far. And the high school kid scoffed at me and said, “It’s not inertia; it’s momentum.” I didn’t say anything to him, but I remember my plan was to go ask Donny, and if Donny told me it was inertia, then it wouldn’t matter if Albert Einstein told me it was momentum – if Donny said it was inertia, then it was inertia, and Einstein was an idiot. (Turns out it was momentum.)
He attached a pen holder to his Bible, and I walked in his steps. To this day I have a pen holder on my Bible. I remember the day we were in a tent at camp and he warned me about temptations to various sins, and that they are a trap. I can remember the exact time and place that conversation took place.
Older brothers teach their younger siblings in times and places where their parents can’t reach. No one can reach into those moments and contexts of life except an older brother. Jesus does that for us. He’s right there beside you in the events of life, teaching you how to think about them.
Loving Jesus as a Mother
What about this part about being Jesus’ mother? How many of you frequently think of Jesus as your son? Sounds strange, but Jesus mentions that three times here.
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
34 … “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Again, we can think of this in terms of our love for him, or his love for us. Regarding our love for him, there is a very special kind of love that only exists between a mother and her child. There’s nothing like it in all the world. There is no stronger love. There are a lot of people who used to love me. But something happened that made them turn against me, or maybe they just moved away and forgot about me, or whatever. But there’s never been a moment when I’ve wondered if my mom still loves me. I make myself obnoxious to others, and they turn against me, but all that does to mom is activate her compassion all the more. If you’re a mother, you have capacities for depths of love that are unique in the human experience, and Jesus desires that aspect of your capacity to love.
Access
But again – more important than our loving Jesus this way is the other side – Jesus loving us the way a man loves his mother. There was a commercial on the other day where an older woman is sitting on her couch, and this man comes flying in the front door, all winded and alarmed, and says, “I’m here mom – what do you need?” And she says, “Oh, I just wanted to show you that I figured out how to use my TV remote!” It’s a funny commercial, but it illustrates the point about how if a man gets a call from his mother, he drops what he’s doing and goes to help her. No one has access to you like your mom does. That’s why it seems so shocking when they tell Jesus that his mom is outside calling for him, and he doesn’t go out. Most of us would go out immediately. Even if you don’t have the most blessed woman of all time as your mom like Jesus did, still, even if you have an ordinary mom, if she calls you on the phone, do you just put her on hold? I don’t recommend it. What would happen if you got a call right here and now from your mom saying, “I’m in trouble! I need your help. Please, come and help me!” Would you say, “Yeah, I’m busy right now. Try calling 911”? No. You would probably respond right away to any kind of call from your mom, but if she were in danger or distress, nothing would be able to hold you back.
That’s how we are in our natural, sinful state with our imperfect love for our mothers. But what kind of love does the perfect man have toward his mother? If someone so much as insults your mother, he gets a black eye, right? How do you think Jesus would respond if Mary was in danger and was screaming for help? How do you think Jesus responded after Joseph died and he walked into the house and saw his mom crying? Whatever the natural response of love that a man has for his mother, crank that all the way up to perfection, and you know how Jesus loves his mother. And what he’s saying here is that he has that kind of love for anyone who is one of his followers. He loves you like his own mother.
Meet Jesus’ in His Home
I don’t know what you think Jesus’ attitude toward you is, but Jesus is like us – he enjoys being with family. And so that’s where you can find him. You can meet Jesus anywhere, but the place where you are most likely to run into him is the place you’re most likely to find anyone – in their home, with their family. If you want to draw near to Christ, come to the family gatherings. And if Jesus feels this way about his brothers and sisters and mothers, how could we not love them?
Matthew 25:40 "The King will reply,`I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
