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May 09, 2010
“Mothers, Brothers, and the Unforgiven”
Mark 3: 19b – 35
Sunday, May 9, 2009
I like to think of Mark’s Gospel as the quick gospel. Mark seems to be in a great hurry to relate the important events and words of Jesus life. There are no birth narratives or genealogies in Mark. As his gospel begins, Jesus is already almost 30 years old and John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing and announcing the coming of the Messiah.
The KJV or the Authorized Version picks up on this quickness of Mark’s gospel, translating certain Greek words with the word Immediately. The word Immediately occurs 43 times in the KJ translation of the Gospel of Mark.
With all this quickness then we should not be surprised that events recorded in the third chapter of Mark’s occurred after Jesus was well established as a popular Rabbi. He was perhaps at the height of his popularity. Crowds followed him everywhere he went and the San Hedrin in Jerusalem had heard about him and sent spies to listen to what he was saying to ascertain if his teachings were orthodox.
All of this happened so quickly that Jesus’ family was not ready for Jesus to be so popular. The passage we are looking at this morning takes us to a time when Jesus had just returned to Capernaum from preaching and healing in other villages. He had become so popular that crowds from the surrounding villages immediately arrived, or followed him back home, and gathered around him to the point that he couldn’t get any rest or take a break to eat properly.
His family, about 20 miles away heard about this and thought that they needed to rescue Jesus. The reports they heard were that Jesus was “out of his mind”, that he had gone over the edge, that he was working way too hard and needed some rest.
Now if they had been successful in “rescuing” their brother and son, they would have impeded the ministry of Jesus and done damage to the plan of God. But since none of us have the son of God in our families, there are sometimes occasions when we do need to help members of our families find some balance in their lives. Some of us need to rescue loved ones from overwork or too much stress, or intervene in their addictions. The fact that Jesus’ family were wrong in this case does not mean that all families are wrong in trying to rescue their loved ones from themselves or from situations they have gotten themselves into.
While the family of Jesus was on their way to Capernaum to take him home by force if necessary, the popularity of Jesus was bringing him some opposition. Scribes or authorities of the Hebrew Scriptures had been sent from Jerusalem to check Him out or to stop Him. They accused him of having a high level evil spirit. They stated that it was by the power of this demon that he was able to do miracles, including the driving out of other evil spirits or demons.
Jesus attacked this accusation on the basis of logic. For one of Satan’s demons to drive out other of Satan’s demons means that Satan’s kingdom was self-destructing. Like us, all they had to do was look around at their society to perceive that Satan’s hold on this world was not decreasing.
In this context, Jesus used the proverb “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand and a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
In 1858, as he was receiving his party’s nomination to run for the United States senate, Abraham Lincoln quoted Jesus in his famous “house divided” speech. At that time, the issue dividing the nation was slavery. Some states and territories allowed slavery and some did not. That was causing some problems and Lincoln argued that this division if allowed to continue would bring down the nation. It took a war to eliminate that division, but every day our news media reminds us that over several issues we are a divided nation. In my own experience I have discovered that the church, including and especially the PCUSA is divided over several important issues. We must pray for unity in our nation and in our denomination and be willing to work toward unity.
Jesus then said something else about his power to drive out Satan’s demons or evil spirits. He said “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then his house can be plundered.”
As I said earlier, It doesn’t take a Christian long to look around in our time and see that Satan has a lot of power in our world. Evil is so prevalent that lesser evils are often taken as good. When we find ourselves in those circumstances it is good for us to remember this saying of Jesus. In this context, The strong man is Satan. And the one who has tied him up so his house can be plundered is Jesus. Ever since Jesus came, Satan is still powerful, but we are the followers of the one who has bound him and we are supposed to be plundering his house, we are supposed to be defeating evil and freeing people from the fetters of unbelief and delivering them to the freedom of faith in Christ.
But in accusing Jesus of having an evil spirit, his opponents had started to go down a very bad road. So Jesus had to warn them. He said that they were in danger of committing the unforgivable sin. As long as they believed Jesus was powered by Satan, they could not accept him as Lord and God. As long as they perceived him to be powered by evil spirits, they could not perceive his works and his words as the works and words of God’s Holy Spirit. And as long as they could not see or even consider that it was the Spirit of God working in Jesus, they could not be saved or forgiven.
Now, since all Christians have allowed the Holy Spirit to reveal to us that Christ is the Son of God and Savior, it is not possible for us to commit the unforgivable Sin. But we can get into a lot of trouble when we do not see the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world. Ask God to open your eyes so you can see the works of the Holy Spirit in your life and in this otherwise dark and evil world.
But today is Mother’s day, and Mary the Mother of Jesus is in this passage. She and her sons finally arrived at the crowded house where Jesus was staying. If they witnessed the conversation Jesus had with his enemies they were probably doubly certain that Jesus needed to be rescued, not only from himself but also from his enemies.
It is interesting to note that Jesus enemies thought he was demon possessed, and his family thought he was crazy. There is not always a lot of difference between those two. Jesus family was not a lot more helpful than his enemies. Now to be fair, the family was really looking out for Jesus good. They just did not understand what was best for Jesus. He needed to be with people and get his message out. He only had a couple of years left. But still, we need to try to be of more help to Jesus than his enemies are
To be fair to Mary we must acknowledge that she was His mother. She still wanted to take care of her son. Mom’s are so connected to their children that it is sometimes difficult to let them go. But in this case, God needed Jesus to do what he was doing and in her love for Jesus and in her desire to protect and save Jesus she was in God’s way.
When Jesus was told that his mothers and brothers and sisters were outside the house waiting to talk to him, he looked at those seated around him and said “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Now I think that there is some chastisement for his mom and siblings in what Jesus said. They were not doing the will of God in trying to take him home and get him some rest. But in a way His words also leave them in their high positions. In using their relationships to Jesus as status to which he elevates all who do God’s will, He acknowledged that being His sibling or His mom was a high and holy status.
Today we ought to thank God for our Mothers, especially those who were Christians. We should also show our appreciation for those fine Christian ladies who are raising their children in our Church. We need to pray for them. It is not always easy being a mom.
But was also need to thank God for raising up all Christians who seek to do God’s will in their lives to being siblings and Mothers of Jesus. What a great privilege he has given us and our Christian mothers.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at May 9, 2010 06:58 PM