GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:34
The Family
I happened to see the end of a trial on one of the now-popular lowbrow courtroom shows dotting the daytime television schedule. Two brothers were suing one another over the expenses of caring for their mother during her last days. In the interview at the end of the show, one brother said that they were a dysfunctional family who didn’t like one another. The whole tawdry program was a commentary on how familial relationships can become soiled.
St. Mark recorded an incident in which Jesus’ mother and brothers came to take him home—away from the physically exhausting schedule and the danger. The crowd around Jesus was so large, though, that they had to send a message to Jesus that they were outside. Jesus received the message and used it as a teaching moment. He asked the rhetorical question: “Who are my mother and brothers?” “And looking around at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, ‘Behold, my mother and my brothers!’” (Mark 3:34)
It’s important to note that Jesus didn’t reject his mother and brothers in the flesh. He didn’t say, “I don’t know them. I’m no longer part of them.” In this instance, Jesus described another type of familial relationship—one based on a common experience, a common interest, a common obedience, and a common goal, according to William Barclay in The Gospel of Mark. Some of Jesus’ family members did become followers. His mother, Mary, for example, was with the believers in an upper room in Jerusalem following the resurrection (Acts 1:14) and was likely filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-4)
Of the two families defined here, one has to choose with which one he wants to be identified—those in the flesh or those in the spirit.
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