MARK 3 (PART 2)
Read Mark 3:13-35
Earlier on, in Chapter 1, we read about Jesus calling his first disciples, Peter and Andrew then James and John. Here Mark gives us the appointing and commissioning of the full set of twelve disciples. And we see here three characteristics of disciples. Firstly, they are set apart. There seems to have been a larger group of followers up on that mountainside with Jesus and from that group he pulled out twelve in particular to be his disciples. These twelve became disciples because Jesus ‘called to himself those he wanted’ (v13). It was Jesus’ choice, not theirs. And finally, they responded, ‘they came to him’ and we have a sense of obedience and the immediacy of that response. Jesus then commissioned them as apostles (the word in Greek means “sent”) to preach and have authority to drive out demons. There is a hint there as to our own relationship with Jesus. He calls us to be his people – it is his choice that we are Christians. He sets us apart from the world in which we live. He calls us to obedience to his word and sends us out into this world.
Next, Mark reports another incident in which there is opposition to Jesus, even from his own family, who thought that he was mad. The religious authorities went one step further and accused him of being possessed by evil spirits and that was what gave him the power to drive out demons. Jesus showed them how ludicrous such an argument was. Why would demons give him the power to drive out other demons? That makes no sense at all. Again, we see that people failed to see Jesus for who he is. And the sad part is that not only did they reject God’s grace in the miracles and healings that Jesus did, they actually attributed that work to the devil. They missed the point about what Jesus was doing on the Sabbath in the earlier part of Chapter 3, and they also missed the point of his powerful ministry among the people.
The chapter ends with this curious incident of Jesus’ mother and brothers looking for Jesus, presumably to take him home and away from all the commotion he was causing and upsetting the authorities. Jesus’ reaction seems harsh, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he said. This seems to be contrary to the culture of family in the Middle East of the time. But the following words of Jesus as he looked around at the assembled company, “Here are my mother and my brothers; whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” help us to understand him. They give us the sense that Jesus is looking at the bigger picture, the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. All of God’s people should treat one another as if they were part of close family, and we see the outworking of that in the early days of the church in Acts where they shared resources to make sure that no one was in need.