Scripture Reference: Mark 3:7-35
A New Family – Continued
Most people don’t want to be told they are helplessly held by Satan, but it is true nonetheless, and the Bible confirms it in other places, you are either a member of the Kingdom of God, or else of the domain of Satan. But the message of Mark’s Gospel, indeed of the whole of Scripture, is that Jesus Christ is more powerful than Satan. Driving out the demons proves that, and here He is on His way to the great battle, the battle of the Cross. Satan’s power over us, his claim on us, is that we are sinners, offenders against God. But when Jesus Christ went to the Cross He dealt with our sin and reconciled us to God. The sins are forgiven; the broken relationship is restored; and Satan’s claim on us is gone. So Jesus’ death on the Cross defeats Satan, the strong man, and Jesus comes in and rescues from Satan’s house everyone who will follow Him out of the prison. So, all of our sins will be forgiven.
Now it is time to meet His natural family. They have been on their way, and now they turn up, Mary, His natural mother, and her other sons. Presumably they know where to find Him because this is His regular base. They wrongly assume that if they send a messenger into the house, then Jesus will immediately drop whatever He is doing and emerge. That is what the culture of the time assumes. Inside, the house is crowded as usual; their message is passed along until it reaches Him, and soon everyone knows that His family is waiting outside.
Jesus, however, immediately responds with a distinctly odd question. Then He looks around. Now the house is crowded, but of course this is not the heaving crowd of thousands that we have seen with Jesus by the lakeside. This is a house in a fishing village; at most a few dozen people are within earshot and these are not all the sensation-seekers. These are people who want to sit and listen to His words, a predominately intimate group that consists of His core team of twelve with a wider group of others. In verses 34-35 Jesus gives His verdict. He looks at the group gathered round Him on the floor. Then He looks at the messenger at the door and speaks through him to the family gathered outside, and He essentially says, “You say they are outside looking for me? No, My true family have already found me. My true family are here, on the inside, doing what I teach.” It’s not so much that He is rejecting His natural family, though we should note that there is no special place given to Mary, His mother, here. But this is one more way that Jesus is overturning people’s assumptions, redrawing the boundaries. He is speaking to a nation who believe that family is above everything else. These people live and die by genealogies. They think God will accept them simply because two thousand years ago they had an ancestor called Abraham.
But, Jesus tells the people, (and therefore God’s true people) who truly are His:
“For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”
God who is creating a new people that doesn’t depend on physical family ties, or on the nation you were born into, but only on those belonging to Jesus. It’s a family that will extend right around the world, into every country and across every boundary. It doesn’t divide people by their background, their color, or their race.
In every local church we have a small fragment of that bigger, global, family. It’s not perfect, because it’s full of people who still get things wrong from time to time. Sometimes bad things also happen in this family. But the good news is that the Head of this family is perfect. The day will finally come when we are too; we will see Jesus face to face, and He will look at us and say, “Yes, you are My brother, My sister.” In this family, we are united by ties much stronger, and far deeper, than those of even the closest human family. These ties are stronger than genetics, stronger than marriage, stronger than human love. They are ties based on Blood, but not ours. The life of this family begins with the Blood of Jesus.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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