Mark 3:19b-21

The Kingdom Is Opposed (3) – Jesus as A Sign Of Contradiction 

Rejection By Family

Years of conditioning can easily domesticate the Gospel. Any sense of the turbulence of the Galilee of Jesus’ day and of the turmoil surrounding him personally has been generally lost. It is easy to assume that the benevolent actions of Jesus induced a mood of general acceptance and approval, not unlike the attitude in our culture to contemporary benefactors or respected religious leaders.

In fact the effect of Jesus on Galilee may have been more like the impact of Martin Luther King on the segregated world of sixties America, or even of terrorist leaders on the tumultuous Islamic world of today. To the oppressed and marginalised he seemed a beacon of hope. To many others, particularly among the politically powerful, he was regarded as dangerous; and among the religiously powerful he was seen even as the embodiment of evil.

Mark balanced his picture with two carefully chosen anecdotes, the first apparently more benign yet not less demanding for Jesus personally.

Mark 3:19-21 – Jesus is Rejected by His Family

The scene moved back to the town, and not unexpectedly the ensuing incidents were not without menace.

Initially the mood was one of universal acceptance. So popular were Jesus and the disciples that they could not find time or space even to eat. Mark seemed to depict a scene that had got virtually out of control.

Jesus’ family is mentioned for the first time in Mark’s narrative. They had left wherever they were (they went out), probably Nazareth (from where Jesus had departed some time earlier). Their intention was negative. They came to restrain him, believing presumably that he was either an embarrassment to the family honour and cause of irremediable loss of face, or that he needed protection.

Some other translations suggest that it was people (unidentified) who were saying that Jesus was out of his mind. In which case the family had apparently been made aware of the common assessment and felt obligated to do something about it. The original text could just as accurately be translated, however, [as is done here] as inferring that it was the family who were saying he was out of his mind. In that case it was their judgment, formed from the information fed them from others.

Whatever the intention of Mark, the reaction focused attention on Jesus and away from his message. Jesus’ message was unsettling, as was his behaviour. A sure way to undermine the credibility of the message was to question the sanity of its author. It may well have been that the family did not wish to be identified with either the behaviour or message of Jesus.

The context so far has not given enough information to draw a conclusion.