The contrast could not be more stark: one group has come to take charge of Jesus, the other sits at his feet, devotedly learning. The real shock is that the former are Jesus’ mother and brothers, while the latter are some of the people of the town (Mk. 3:20-35).
It’s a scene that holds profound challenges for us.
If ever any group could claim the inside track on Jesus and have what they believed to be a legitimate claim upon him it was his mother and brothers. And that sense of privilege and position leads them here to attempt to control him, calling him out from the house. They believe that he’s out of his mind, a short journey away from the full-on unbelief and rejection of the teachers of the law who believe that “he is possessed by Beelzebul!”
This is so shocking that it might be hard for us to see any way in which we might even begin to approximate his family’s reaction. And yet it is sadly true that we can believe we have some kind of prior call upon the Lord, that before all others we have the right to his attention and his allegiance, that he simply must be compliant with our prayers and desires. That he is there to fulfil our agendas for our lives and for our church. No one knows better than we do, not even Jesus.
Of course that will seldom be overt; our sinful hearts know how to trade in subtlety. But it can be real, seeping into our prayers and insidiously debasing them. When we are blind to that and succumb to the temptation, it damages and undermines our worship and our glad dependence upon the Saviour. Would you be willing to ask the Lord to show you if that might the case with you? To pray with David, “Search me, O God and know my heart…see if there is any offensive way in me.” (Ps. 139:23f)
Thankfully, a better way is also on display in this passage.
The crowd that had gathered was so large and so insistent on seeing the Lord that neither he nor his disciples were able to eat. The house was so rammed with people there was no space to sit down for a meal. But some of them, at least, were not there just to gawk at this miracle-worker; they had come to sit and learn at Jesus’ feet.
They readily adopted the posture of disciples - learners of the Lord who listen in order to live in the light of all that he is and has said. This chaotic scene has, at its centre, a space and a place of calm, of unhurried reflection and the dawning of devotion. Is it possible that within the turbulent times of our own days there might also be that kind of ‘cleft in the rock’ where we can choose the better part and sit with Jesus?
For those who did so then, and for all who do so today, the Lord Jesus utters unspeakably precious words: he declares that these are his true family - his brother and sister and mother. Those who do the will of God by placing their faith in his Son and their lives into his hands are openly acknowledged to belong to his family. Cherished and welcomed, honoured and humbled, blessed without measure.
Not seeking to take control of the Lord but captivated by his grace.
