31 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."
33 "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.
34 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."
Perhaps in an attempt to restrain our Lord’s activity, we discover in our verses for today Jesus’ earthly family seeking audience with Him. We learned previously in this same chapter that they had come to take charge of Him because they thought He was out of His mind. Remaining firmly planted outside rather than searching through the crowds for Him they disrespectfully send someone in to fetch Him. Not bothering to go inside themselves appears to be indicative of their desire to remain detached and aloof from His teaching. When told His relations were seeking for Him our Lord’s response shows He was not overwhelmingly pleased with their actions. Indeed, He asks: "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
I do not believe Jesus’ Words were intended to slur our familial relationships rather elevate our spiritual ones. His intention was to highlight a far deeper issue of a person rightly related to Him through faith. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are to be as much esteemed and loved as our nearest relations. I am confident that is why the New Testament is replete with admonitions to love one another. In fact John tells us that we are called children of God because of the love the Father has lavished on us through His Son. Faith in the Lord Jesus involves the obligation of the love of the saints. We would do well to remind ourselves that brotherly love is a command from our Lord not an option:
17 This is my command: Love each other. John 15:17 (NIV)
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 1 John 3:14 (NIV)
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. 1 John 3:23-24 (NIV)
“When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, ‘It is talking to me, and about me.’” Soren Kierkegaard
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us to love.” Augustine
“He is present and precious to His own.” Hudson Taylor
“When sin penetrated the hearts of Adam and Eve, they not only became alienated from God, but they also became alienated from each other. When Jesus died on the Cross, He made it possible for all who believe in Him to be in fellowship with God—and also in godly fellowship with one another. Godly friendships are the evidence of our belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. But godly friendships are not found; they are made. They are built up stone by stone. They are established on biblical principles.” Michael Youssef
“It is impossible for us to be the children of God naturally...we must be born again.” Oswald Chambers
We discover as well our Lord’s words in regard to the value and high esteem He placed on familial relations later in Mark. He admonishes the Pharisees for their wrong treatment of their mother and father’s through the manmade traditions they had established:
9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." Mark 7:9-13 (NIV)
“The Christian is a new creature, born and taught from above. He has been convinced of his guilt and misery as a sinner, has fled for refuge to the hope set before him, has seen his Son and believed on Him: his natural prejudices against the glory and grace of God’s salvation have been subdued and silenced by almighty power; he has accepted the Beloved and is made acceptable in Him; he now knows the Lord; has renounced the confused, distant, uncomfortable notions he once formed of God...He sees God in Christ, reconciled, a Father, a Savior and a Friend, who has freely forgiven him all his sins and given him the spirit of adoption; he is now no longer a servant, much less a stranger, but a son; and because a son, an heir already interested in all the promises, admitted to the throne of grace, and assured expectant of eternal glory.”
John Newton, Letters of John Newton 1781