Often when I’ve read through the new testament, I’ve felt a tension when Jesus talks of how he defines his family. In Mark chapter 3, verses 31-35 we see Jesus’s blood relatives come to him while he’s teaching. Someone notifies Jesus they are here, yet he responds by changing the definition of his family. I believe his words can be taken one of two ways (I only believe one of them is correct, but we’ll get to that in a minute). The way I often struggled with this statement was as though it were a diminishing statement, as if to say “my blood family is not significant, they are just people”. After all, that’s how I would feel if I traveled to see my brother, yet he denied letting me pass through a crowd to see him. I wonder as I write this, whether that’s a tension others have struggled with. If it is, I’d like to share how God opened my eyes.
The second way to look at Jesus’s statement is an uplifting statement. To say “yes my blood family are important, in fact they mean the world to me, and so do all these other people.”
It’s easy for us (and probably those people at the time) to expect that blood relations offer a certain level of entitlement. I see this argued about all the time online. People make big shows about how they believe blood relatives are or aren’t entitled to special treatment from those they’re related to. I can see merit in many points of view on this topic. But let us not forget that God doesn’t give special treatment to some people above others. He loves us all unconditionally. In this passage of scripture, I believe Jesus reminds us to let go of our sense of pride and entitlement. It doesn’t matter where we’re born. It doesn’t even matter how close to Jesus we were when we were born. What matters is if we seek him. We don’t get special cushions on earth for being Christians, just as Jesus’s blood relatives didn’t get special seats to hear him teach.
Perhaps even greater though is the allusion to what’s to come. I don’t recall seeing this talked about before, but I won’t pretend to have done extensive research, so perhaps someone has said it better. We know that Jesus shed his blood for us. At the last supper he offered a drink, calling it “his blood”. I think there’s a connection here, where Jesus was hinting at his mission. I don’t think Jesus was saying that blood relatives don’t get any special treatment, I think Jesus was saying that by the gift of his blood we ALL gain that special treatment.
God is a god of love. Jesus is the light of the world and our savior. He wants us to be humble and kind. And more than anything he wants us to know we are saved, truly and wholly saved. Because God loves us more than we could ever understand.
Mark 3:31-35 (NIV) – Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
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.”