Jesus shows us who belongs to His true family.
3:20 | Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, "He is out of his mind"...
3:31 | ...And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you." And he answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother."
Previously, we studied Christ's words regarding the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit—the sin which is never forgiven because those who commit it never seek forgiveness.
That sin, we learned, was not simply a one-time event. It was a settled condition of the soul, one that the scribes in Jesus' day were in peril of committing. In the presence of the Holy Spirit's light, when we reject Christ, we reject the only means to salvation.
The scribes and religious leaders, the Pharisees, knew enough. As we've been following in Mark's Gospel, they knew who Jesus was, yet they hated and rejected him. They were at risk of fully and finally rejecting him.
The scribes had the evidence right before them. They knew the truth. They knew what Jesus had said and what Jesus was doing, yet they denied him. They called Jesus a son of Satan. They claimed he was possessed by Beelzebul, by the prince of demons.
By God's grace, we learned to take care, as the author of Hebrews said, "lest there be in any of us a hardness of heart, leading us to fall away from the living God." We must exhort one another "as long as it is called today"—even in Jesus' day, it was still "today," the day of salvation, the day to turn and trust in Christ, the day of grace freely offered to all—that none might be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.
So hopefully we absorbed that lesson last week. I've rehearsed it briefly, just in case we missed it. Perhaps last week you understood that part.
You said, "The unpardonable sin is a settled condition of the soul. Check. Got that. I learned that Jesus has come and bound the strongman, Satan. He's defeating Satan, and I'm thankful for that. I trust in him for that. I got that."
But then perhaps you also remember, "Didn't the pastor say something about liking sandwiches? What was that about? Why are we talking about that? And why is he bringing it up again this morning?" We mentioned that briefly because Mark employs a literary device throughout his gospel. In our passage, it's what we called last week "intercalation," or a "Markan sandwich." Mark returns to a scene he has been describing, and as we've read these different scenes—beginning in verses 20-21, then verses 22-30, and now down to verse 31—we find that Mark is actually sandwiching the confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees between these two scenes involving Jesus' family.
He's doing this for a very important reason. This isn't simply an interesting literary tidbit. The question is, why does Mark do this? There are several reasons.
One is simply to heighten the tension. Mark starts by telling us about Jesus' family coming to lay hands on him, then interrupts that narrative to tell us a different story, before resuming where he left off. This creates suspense.
But frequently, I believe in almost every case where Mark does this, he's making a theological point as well. What happens in the middle tells us something about what happens on the edges.
And so we find, as horrific as it is to think of the scribes fully and finally rejecting Jesus, we see the same hostility in the hearts of Jesus' family. Think of it like a movie scene.
Some of you may be fans of films like Christopher Nolan's "Inception" or "Memento." Don't worry—the church movie night won't be showing "Memento" in May. But movies like these aren't shot in chronological sequence; they don't always show things happening sequentially.
Just imagine: as Jesus' family draws near to lay hands upon him, suddenly the frame freezes and the lighting changes. We're given perhaps a flashback or even a flash-forward to the confrontation with the scribes, who accuse him of casting out demons by Beelzebul.
Once that scene concludes, Mark draws us back to Jesus' family, standing at the door, ready to seize him. They're standing outside. Mark is very explicit about this.
They are standing outside. Though geographically true, they are also spiritually standing outside—outside the presence of Christ, outside the kingdom of God. The scribes stood outside when they accused Jesus. His family stands outside here. In fact, this entire section—this Markan sandwich—contrasts outsiders and insiders. It distinguishes those without the kingdom from those within it.
Or rather, as Mark tells us, those seated within the kingdom of God. As we examine this passage, that's our outline. If you have one of the sermon notes, we're looking at just two headings: outsiders and insiders.
Those standing outside the kingdom and those standing within. The great irony is that those farthest from Jesus in this passage are actually those closest to him biologically—his own flesh and blood.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, those who stand inside and outside may surprise us. We inherently think of membership as a matter of merit, position, status, or even family ties. But, as commentator William Lane rightly observes, in this climactic scene, we see with Jesus' family that "against a common background of blindness and hostility, those stand true who are the true family of Jesus."
The true family of Jesus. So again, our outline is straightforward this morning, as we examine the outsiders and the insiders.
Let's begin with those standing outside.
We're told in verse 21 that this is Jesus' family. "They went out"—already, Mark uses outsider language.
They went out to seize him after he went home. This could be referring to Jesus returning to Nazareth, but I don't believe that's the case.
Nazareth was his hometown where he grew up. Yet we've been following in Mark that Capernaum had become his effective residence.
That's where he had taken up residence, staying with Peter and Andrew. So there Jesus is, apparently in Peter and Andrew's house.
And just as we might occasionally dread on a Sunday, the crowds have gathered. The house is full. Perhaps they simply wanted a quiet Sabbath afternoon, but instead, crowds pressed into the house.
We can imagine Peter saying, "Lord, we just finished fixing the ceiling after the paralyzed man was lowered down. And now the door is bursting off its hinges as people come to be healed and hear your teaching." Mark tells us that so many people were present that there wasn't even time for the disciples and Jesus himself to eat.
They couldn't even sit down for a meal—there was so much ministry happening. You can imagine Jesus' family approaching, saying, "Oy vey, Jesus is thin as a rail. Let's get him some nosh." Did he just say "nosh"? Yes, nosh—you can look it up later.
They just wanted to get him some food. And as any good Jewish mother would, Mary comes to provide what she thinks he needs. She travels from Nazareth with Jesus' brothers to bring her son to his senses. They say, "He is out of his mind."
"He's crazy. He's absolutely crazy. He's carried on with this Messiah tangent long enough. It's destroying him. It's destroying our reputation. Jesus, you're really embarrassing us right now with all this crowd business and kingdom talk and forgiving sinners."
You can almost hear the crowd's message in verse 32, perhaps with a hint of compassion: "Jesus, your mother and your brothers are worried about you. They care about you. They're outside seeking you."
They're seekers, right? Who are the seekers in this passage? It's his family—they're seeking him.
But in fact, as we'll see through our study of Mark, the word "to seek" in Greek is almost always used negatively in Mark's gospel. It describes those who seek to lay hands on Jesus to take his life. Here we find Jesus' family seeking to lay hands on him to curtail his ministry.
But who are these people? Who comprises this family of Jesus? We know Mary, the mother of our Lord, well enough. Like some of our own mothers, we give her special attention around the holidays. But who are these brothers (and sisters, as some translations include)? "Adelphos," the Greek word for brother, can encompass sisters as well.
I can't tell you much about his sisters—scripture says little about them—but we do know something about the brothers. In Matthew 13, Jesus teaches at a synagogue in Nazareth, and the people respond with derision and unbelief:
"Where did he get this wisdom?" In other words, "Who does this Jesus think he is? How can he allegedly perform all these miracles? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?" As an aside, Mary missed an opportunity there—she had almost achieved the five Js, but chose Simon instead. That would have completed the set!
We don't know much about Simon and Joseph. We do know about Judas—not Iscariot, to be clear. This is a different Judas.
We know him better as Jude, author of the letter bearing his name at the very back of our Bibles, just before Revelation. And we know about James, likely the author of the Epistle of James. James himself would later be called by Paul one of the pillars of the New Testament church. Yet here are James and Jude opposing Jesus.
"He's out of his mind. We need to stop him." That's what they're saying.
Before moving on, we should briefly address Mary and Jesus' brothers, since some here come from Roman Catholic backgrounds. This may be something you or your family members have wondered about. In Roman Catholic theology, Mary is said to be "aeiparthenos"—the ever-virgin.
According to this teaching, she never had relations with Joseph and never had children besides Jesus. This view holds that the brothers mentioned in the Bible are not Mary's sons. Perhaps they were Joseph's sons from a previous marriage, or as the Catholic catechism suggests, they were the sons of Jesus' aunt, also named Mary, making them Jesus' cousins.
To be clear, the Bible occasionally uses "adelphos" in a figurative sense. It can refer to relatives or to people not strictly your brother.
We do this in English too. We have the award-winning series "Band of Brothers," or professional wrestler Hulk Hogan calling everyone "brother." My wife told me not to use that example—I probably shouldn't have!
But we use the word "brother" figuratively. Is it being used figuratively here? Are James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon merely figurative brothers—cousins or other relatives?
I want to state clearly this morning that they are not figurative brothers. We read in this text that Mary is Jesus' mother—that's literal. She is the mother of God in that she gave birth to the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. But if we take Mary literally here, we need to take the brothers literally as well.
To do otherwise damages the text and distorts our interpretive approach to scripture. We need clear eyes as we read the Bible, approaching it on its own terms, not importing theology, however much we might wish it were true.
There's much more to say on this subject, but I'll leave it there because we need to understand why these people were seeking Jesus.
Why would Mary—called blessed in scripture, who identifies herself as the handmaiden of the Lord, faithful and wanting to serve God—why is she here with her sons opposing Jesus? This is why they were seeking him.
Again, "zeteo" in Greek, the word "to seek" in Mark, is a hostile word. They're seeking Jesus, but not to hear from him—they're seeking to impose upon him.
This remains true today. Those who feel familiar with Jesus, close to him, who think they know him and what he's capable of, try to press upon him their own understanding without letting him speak to them. We dare not do this.
We need to hear Jesus on his own terms. That's why we pray, "Gracious Spirit, dwell with me," asking the Spirit to remove our blinders, prejudices, and preconceptions so we can hear what God is saying in his word. Otherwise, we risk seeking Jesus to manipulate him according to our wishes.
Jesus is the King of Glory. He will not be moved. He will not be a tool for our ministry ends, however noble we think they are.
He is the King of Glory. We listen to him, not the other way around. So they were seeking him.
Before moving on from these outsiders—and I emphasize, for now they are outside the kingdom (I'm not commenting on their ultimate salvation; we'll return to Jesus' biological family shortly)—just know they're currently on the outside.
I want to address families in general, because I believe this is in the text.
We see Jesus' own family opposing his ministry. Is it possible that your own family has sometimes been hostile to Jesus' ministry? Is it possible that you yourself, for your family's sake, have sometimes been hostile to Jesus' ministry? This isn't about shaming anyone for missing evening worship. That's not my intent.
But our culture is deeply hostile to the family as God created it. The family is good—man and woman coming together, having children. This is God's good creation. Yet we live in a culture hostile to this understanding, one that treats children as interchangeable with pets: "Don't have a kid, have a dog."
Or defines family as simply any group of people choosing to live together. That's not God's design for the family. The family is good, and we should honor it.
We must honor our parents as God commands. Fathers shouldn't exasperate their children. There are biblical family dynamics we should observe. Yet, looking at most of you, I don't think your temptation is to throw off traditional family values. No, I think you're more likely to make your families into idols.
An idol is a good thing made into an ultimate thing.
I've referenced this before—it comes from Tim Keller, who drew it from C.S. Lewis, who got it from Augustine, who found it in Paul's writings. So it's biblical. Idolatry happens when we take what God made and called good and instead call it "God." There are times—in my own life too—when we elevate what we think is right for our family above what we know God says is right for us.
We need to take this seriously. I'm not being overly prescriptive. I'm not saying you should never vacation with your distant family.
Lord willing, I'm looking at plane tickets myself—they're expensive—but I want to visit my parents and brothers in New Jersey this year. I'd love to do that.
But are we making God's priorities our priorities regarding our families? Many who once walked with Christ outwardly departed when it became difficult for their families. When faith became inconvenient or infringed upon family dynamics, God was set aside. This is a temptation for all of us.
Jesus wasn't deceived. Family dynamics can become idols just like anything else.
We need to be prayerful about this, because some of you come from difficult family backgrounds. We shouldn't think that honoring God and prioritizing Him means abandoning or neglecting our biological families.
Some of you have encountered such stories—people who thought they were serving God while forsaking their families. That's not what I'm advocating.
We should have our families' best interests at heart. Family matters, yes. But what matters most for our family is their eternal souls.
That they're in worship, that they're praying, that they're hearing Scripture read together. That we gather for family worship. That fathers lead their homes well in this way. Your child might become a track star, a pop singer, or a great golfer. But if they don't know Christ, they face eternal separation from God.
Lord have mercy—we can't save our children. There's no formula for doing everything right so children turn out perfectly. Even our anxieties about our children can become idols.
We must entrust everything to the Lord, praying for our children, parents, and siblings, while trusting God, who is always good and does all things well.
By God's grace, as He works through our families and our testimony, even some of our own family members may be brought inside.
There are insiders in this passage—not Jesus' biological family.
Notice who these people are sitting around Jesus. They are, in fact, the people surrounding him, near to him. That's Mark's emphasis in the text. They are around him, sitting around him. These people are inside not only the house—Peter and Andrew's house with its hole in the ceiling—but geographically, spatially inside.
They're also inside the kingdom because they're at Jesus' feet. We know that the crowds in Mark aren't necessarily all believers. Some follow him for the miracles. Some find his teaching interesting but will ultimately fall away.
Yet here, Jesus looks around at those in his immediate vicinity. When they tell him, "Jesus, your family's outside," he responds, "No, they're not. They're right here." He looks at those surrounding him and says, "Here is my mother."
These are challenging words. Jesus calls Christian women his mothers and sisters, and Christian men his brothers.
But this is scripture's testimony. This is what Jesus clearly states. This is his family.
Beyond biological or legal family, beyond anything in this temporary earthly sojourn, there exists a family gathered at Jesus' feet. Churches sometimes reflect this when they speak of the "church family."
It might seem like a platitude: "Of course, yes, we're all family—even though that person really annoys me!"
But, beloved, it's true. We are a family united by Jesus Christ's blood. Scripture states this plainly in Ephesians 2.
In Ephesians 2, Paul addresses a church with both Jews and Gentiles—groups as distant from each other as possible. He tells the Gentiles, "You were separated. You were outside, alienated, strangers. You were apart from the covenant promises. You had no hope and were without God in the world."
This describes each of us apart from Christ, and everyone currently without Christ—without hope, without God. But, Paul continues, "now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, once outside the door—maybe knowing about Jesus, maybe having heard of him, maybe wanting to make him do what you wanted—you have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
"For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility." Where is the division between Jew and Gentile, black and white? The separations of rich, poor, slave, free, male, female, as Paul writes in Galatians—all are brought together in the same family in Christ.
"By abolishing the law of commandments, he came and preached peace to those far off and those near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." So we're no longer strangers, no longer aliens or outsiders.
We're called "fellow citizens." More than that, we're called "saints"—holy ones. More than that, we're called "the household of God."
The household of God—that's what this place is. The household of God, the family of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. How can this be? How can people so different—from different countries, speaking different languages, holding different political views, with different parenting styles and backgrounds—how can we be one family?
Simply because we are one family in Christ, in union with him. This is a doctrine Christians must take seriously.
You are in union with Christ. Christ is in you and you are in him. Paul says in Galatians 2, "I was crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Jesus says in John 15, "Church, family, abide in me. Remain in me. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me."
When Jesus went to the cross and was raised imperishable, he raised for himself a people—a people who in time are made alive by the Holy Spirit, regenerated, born anew. We discussed this previously. We have new life in the Spirit, and in that one Spirit, we not only have life in Christ ourselves but life with one another.
Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." We certainly claim this for ourselves—"Yes, no condemnation, no dread." But that's true for your brothers and sisters as well. There is no condemnation for them either because you share in the same sacrifice, the same atoning work of Jesus Christ, the same elder brother, as scripture calls him.
Romans 8 also tells us we are adopted—all of us. We're adopted sons, which means heirs. Ladies, you too are heirs to the gospel's promise, heirs to heaven itself. Together we're this family.
Together we stand in God's kingdom. You must consider yourselves, Romans 6 says, "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus"—plural. We together, collectively, are alive in Christ.
Your family can't save you. Your parents can't believe for you. We must individually receive and rest in Christ alone for salvation, but we aren't saved in isolation.
We're saved into a community of saints, a family that will never fail or fade. Yes, in this life we experience frustration. Yes, in this life we encounter growing pains in our family dynamics.
Yet this is the church you'll be with for all eternity—not just at our congregation. I was struck by this a few weeks ago.
I randomly met someone, and as we talked, I could tell they were a Christian. So I asked, "Are you a believer? Do you trust in Jesus Christ?" They said, "Absolutely." Have you had a conversation like that? Do you think, "That's interesting"? Or do you think, "Praise the Lord"?
This is a soul you'll spend eternity with. When someone says, "Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ," we should rejoice, for this one was lost and is now found. As Luke records in the parable of the prodigal son, the father rejoices over every child who returns.
How could we not rejoice? "This one was lost and now is found. He was dead and now is alive." The household of God—the house of those once dead, now alive in Christ.
How can this be? Only by God's grace. Jesus clearly states that those part of his family are those who do his Father's will.
We must ask: what is this will he refers to? Are we returning to merit—that if we do the right things and follow the right way, we'll enter heaven? No, that's not what he's saying.
He tells us elsewhere what God's will is: "The will of God," he says in John 6, "is that you believe in him whom the Father has sent."
God's will includes much more—there are resulting conditions, implications, and applications of faith.
We are saved to works, but not by them. First and foremost, Jesus says, "Do you know why these are my mother, my brothers, my sisters? Because they believe. Because they trust in me. They listen to me and hang on my every word"—which for anyone else would be blasphemy, but Jesus is God. They believe, and thus are brought into God's family.
This is so precious. When you see how Jesus thinks about his family—he loves them, cares for them, calls them "my mother"—he speaks this way not only to his spiritual family but to his biological mother at the cross. Mary and the women remained; John returned.
And Jesus, seeing Mary's faithful presence, says to John, "Behold your mother." This isn't giving Mary special status but recognizing God's family. All these older women are our mothers. These younger women are our sisters. These older men are our fathers. These younger men are our brothers.
We even address each other this way in presbytery meetings—"fathers, brothers." It's not perfunctory or performative. It's spiritual truth. It is literal, though not biological.
You are closer to your brothers and sisters in Christ than to your biological family if they stand apart from Christ. Jesus isn't suggesting this—he's stating fact.
As the church, God's family, we should consider how to serve one another as family members. We already do this in many ways—visiting each other, hosting one another, encouraging one another, occasionally convicting one another. That's how a family should operate—showing love, grace, and mercy.
They have mercy. Remarkably, Mary was at the cross, but Acts tells us that after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, Mary wasn't alone in prayer—the eleven apostles were there (Judas having apostatized and taken his life, the son of perdition), along with other disciples and Jesus' brothers.
James, Jude. I love the book of Jude, and it struck me more deeply this week while studying this passage. Jude, who once stood outside, who doubted Jesus was the Messiah, writes: "You, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."
And he adds in verse 22, "Have mercy on those who doubt"—because I was one of them.
"Save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by flesh." Do you understand what Jude is saying? He's saying, "Family, this is how we live. We're the household of God. We are God's family, his adopted sons, the mothers, brothers, fathers, and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ."
So live in love. Keep yourselves in the love of God who loved you, that you may love others.
Show compassion and mercy, even to those who doubt, that you might reclaim them and lead them into the Lord's house. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. And we, God's family—his found family, because he found us—will dwell in his house forever and ever.
Amen.
