opposition for believing in Jesus is not easy – especially if the opposition is your family.
All too often a person accepts Christ only to see his family make fun of him – or worse, have nothing to do with him.
What an embarrassment! What a nut! Look what he’s doing to the family name!
One of the verses in this passage has quite an interesting history. Verse 21 states, ‘When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.’”7 The centuries have seen many changes, additions, and subtractions to the original version, mostly related to interpretation of the original Greek. Depending on which translation you read, the text differs when it comes to who it was who actually heard the report about Jesus.
For example, the New International Version (the version we’re now reading) states, “When his family heard about this…” The King James Version says, “And when his friends heard of it…” The Modern Language translation reads, “When His relatives learned of it…” And The New King James Version states, “But when His own people heard…”
These various translations show the tension between seeing Jesus as the Son of God, and hearing his family call him crazy. It’s somehow easier to think that Jesus’ friends or relatives might have seen him as off his rocker, than to think his own family did.
But ten verses later Mark informs us that those who came to take charge of him were his mother and brothers. John tells us in his Gospel, “even his own brothers did not believe in him.”8
Since Joseph is not mentioned here – and hasn’t been heard from since Jesus was twelve years old – most scholars assume he was no longer alive at that time. The pressure from Jesus’ family was nonetheless real.
What do you do when your family stands opposed to your devotion to the Lord? How do you answer their concerns?
So I have no doubt that it was Jesus’ family – his mother and brothers – who came to get him.
It reminds me of the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camel’s back.’ Imagine it: first, a good, respectable carpenter who doesn’t carry on the family business. Then he runs around with a group of guys who are all religious freaks. Worse than that, some of them are fishermen and tax collectors. To top it all off, he thinks he’s God!
What do you do when your family stands opposed to your devotion to the Lord? How do you answer their concerns? Their hostility?
DOUG GOES OFF TO COLLEGE
I remember when my older brother Doug came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ – the first in our family to do so. He was in college at the time. And when he came home and explained the change in his life because of Jesus, my Dad reacted violently. He pounded his fist on the dinner table and told my brother in so many words he would stand for none of this “Jesus” stuff. (And that from a man who religiously brought his family to church every Sunday.)
Jesus wasn’t sitting down at the dining room table with his dad when he began his ministry. But at some point in his ministry, his family decided they weren’t going to stand for all this “religious” stuff. Mark tells us, ‘When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.’”
The phrase “they went to take charge of him” is seven words long in our English Bible – but just three words in the original Greek. The verb translated take charge is used several others times in the Mark’s Gospel: “For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested 9…Then they looked for a way to arrest him10…the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him11…The men seized Jesus and arrested him…”12
Jesus’ family did not intend to arrest him in the same way Herod would later arrest him, but the idea carried by the Greek verb is that they were determined to take him against his will.
Why do they want to take charge of him? Mark says, “He is out of his mind.” Literally, he is crazy! That’s pretty severe. Imagine your own family ready to commit you! (It’s the same thing said of the Apostle Paul in the Book of Acts when King Agrippa accused Paul of being out of his mind.)13
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.
Jesus’ family arrives. It is so crowded, they can’t get in the house where Jesus is teaching. But word gets in that they are outside. They’re here and they’re determined to take Jesus home.
So what do you do when your family stands opposed to you and “religion”? What if your family thinks you’re crazy? And it’s not just confined to family. Sometimes it is our coworkers, or our neighbors. Sometimes it’s old friends, those we previously ran around with, but now they think we’re nuts.
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus asked. This straightforward question is quite profound considering it is Jesus who is asking. How did he answer the question? He knew why his family stood outside. He knew they hadn’t brought him a warm meal and an extra change of clothes. They opposed Jesus’ choices because they didn’t believe in him. How did he deal with their unbelief?
The answer is simple. ‘“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him ...’ Matthew’s Gospel says Jesus pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.”14
The disciples were certainly doing God’s will (Judas too) by sitting there with Jesus, asking questions and learning from a teacher thought to be crazy by his own family. These disciples entered into a relationship with Jesus that went beyond family ties.
Being a disciple of Jesus means doing the will of God – whatever the cost.
To Jesus, those who saw things through his Father’s eyes were his true family. It doesn’t mean he loved his earthly family any less. But it also doesn’t mean he wavered from his commitment to the will of his heavenly Father.
Being a disciple of Jesus means doing the will of God – whatever the cost. Sometimes following Jesus means forsaking family. Is your family’s view of your love for God less than ideal? Do you find yourself defending your words and actions to your brother, or sister, or mother, or father?
Take comfort in the fact that Jesus has been where you are. Just as with Jesus, it may be that your family doesn’t know how to express their concern for you. C.L. Mitton said this about the words used by Jesus’ family:
“If they reveal his family’s failure to understand him, they are also a measure of their concern for him.”
Being a disciple of Jesus means being willing to have your family misjudge your motives and oppose your actions. They may question why you go to church. They may question where you go to church. They may call you names and joke behind your back.
While some of it is intentional, some of it comes from their inability to express to us their concern for us. There is no doubt they love us! But they just don’t know how to tell us that they are worried about what we’ve gotten into.
‘“Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him ...’ You are. You are when you do his will. Jesus is right there with you.
And no one on earth can take
