“The time has come,” Jesus said, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (1:15)
That was Jesus’ great announcement that is at the start of Mark’s gospel, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. But what does the kingdom of God look like? What is its concrete reality?
Israel had these markers: land, temple, king, ancestry, and the Law, that marked them out as YHWH’s royal priesthood, His holy nation, the family belonging to God.
To hear the words: “The kingdom of God has come near” would be to expect the restoration of the king, the rededication of the temple, the liberation of the land from foreign rule, the implementation of the Law, and the archiving of proper census results as to people’s ancestry and claims on inheritance.
Abraham as the father of the nation was celebrated, not so much the fact that he was father of many nations. It would take Paul to map that out.
Do you remember in John 8 where Jesus’ opponents tell him, “Abraham is our father.” (John 8:39)? But Jesus replies that they belong to the household of the devil (8:44).
Here, at the start of a new section in Mark’s gospel, a section running from 3:7 through to 6:13, we have the flip of John 8. We have Jesus’ opponents labelling him as belonging to the household of the satan (Mark 3:22-27), and Jesus declaring in his actions that he is inaugurating a new family around himself that is the fulfilment of the covenant promises to Abraham. The radical appointing of the Twelve in bandit territory was a revolutionary act, that God’s kingdom had come near, and God’s family was being defined in different terms than ancestral links to Jacob’s/Israel’s children.
So, our reading was from 3:7 to 3:35, but we’re going to skim over the introductory chunk of v.7-12, that has this stormy scene at the edge of the lake where waves of people and demons crash around Jesus, seeking to take control of him and his agenda. In those verses we see again the theme of the Messianic secret cropping up.
But this section of Mark’s gospel really gets going with Jesus appointing the Twelve to be with him in the face of an underlying and growing hostility. The purpose sentence in 3:14,15 is fulfilled in 6:7-13 when Jesus sends out the Twelve to preach and drive out demons in His name.
The naming of the Twelve is striking in a number of ways - firstly, in juxtaposition to Jesus mother and half-brothers, and, secondly, in relation to the Old Testament lists of names.
Jesus’ mother and half-brothers are un-named, standing outside, mistaking Jesus’ identity, words and actions. The disciples are named, called to be with Jesus, involved in his life and ministry of doing God’s will.
In regard to the Old Testament lists of names, many people wonder what on earth they are doing in Scripture. There aren’t many sermons on Genesis chapter 10, or Numbers chapter 1, or Ezra chapter 2 or Nehemiah chapter 7. But these lists of names serve a specific purpose to concretise the fulfilment of God’s covenant promises. The fulfilment of God’s promise of fruitfulness to Noah that his descendants would fill the earth. The fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham to rescue his descendants from Egypt given in Genesis 15:13,14. The fulfilment of God’s promises to the prophets to bring the people back from exile.
Here, this list of names, including the brothers, Simon and Andrew, the sons of Zebedee (James and John), and the sons of Alphaeus (Matthew/Levi & James), serves as a clear declaration in Scripture of the concrete reality that God is fulfilling His promises in and through the Twelve, somehow becoming the true family of God, that the Twelve Tribes only pointed forward to.
It’s quite an embarrassing fact to have it stated that the mother of Jesus, along with his half-brothers tried to stop Jesus’ work because they thought he was mad. If you were making things up you would definitely want to avoid this kind of talk, but it’s one of those features that gives us confidence that the gospel writers were faithful to what happened even if it was embarrassing.
This whole episode is massively shocking, and I think we too easily miss the shock of what’s going on here. We miss the revolutionary, subversive nature of Jesus’ retreat into the wilderness of the mountains – up a mountain, alluding to key moments in history, like Moses and Abraham - to inaugurate a new Nation, a new Twelve. We miss the culturally seismic declaration of Jesus in ignoring his family and declaring what constitutes his true family.
Having said that, let’s remember that Jesus doesn’t shirk from his responsibility to respect and care for his mother, even through the pain of crucifixion he makes sure she is not abandoned. (John 19:26,27). But if you come from a more individualistic culture like the UK, you might miss the shock of Jesus’ words and actions in regard to his family in Mark 3.
Family is a big thing in many parts of the world, as many of you will know and experience. Family loyalty, family honour, these have massive weight and influence on people’s lives. Jewish family had this with extra added spiritual significance. Jewish family was the concrete, specific, local expression of the wider, Jewish nation. Jewish family was the local expression of the wider Jewish family of God. You were who you were in God’s kingdom because of your family. You didn’t disrespect the family, and that’s one of the shocking aspects of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Remember that one of the key defining moments of Jewish identity was the yearly family meal of Passover. Once the lamb had been slain in the Temple, the family would gather and eat together, doing this in remembrance of the Great Escape from Egypt and looking forward to a greater rescue.
Not only does Jesus radically redefine the key family meal of Passover around himself, but Jesus redefines those who he calls family not along blood lines or ancestry but in these terms: “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (v.35). And in doing this he opens the coming reality of the fulfilment of Abraham being the father of many nations, of the inclusion of the gentiles into the family based on faith/following.
This all works because Jesus fulfils in Himself the role of Israel. Israel in Scripture is referred to as God’s Son. Jesus as the Unique Son of God alone represents God’s people on the cross. Everyone fled, no-one was left, no-one else was faithful to the end, only Jesus took upon himself the sin that had been piled up in one place and policed by the Law, only Jesus took the full curse of the Law by being hung on a tree, only Jesus was obedient to the Father even unto death, only Jesus fulfilled in himself the role of Son, royal priesthood, holy nation. And so from this, a family is born, in Him. In Him we are adopted in. Because of His faithfulness we can inherit what we do not deserve. Through His death and resurrection we die to the old household of slavery and are brought into the household of faith. Because of His faithfulness we can be born of the Spirit and thus with circumcised hearts we can display the likeness of the family of God by doing the will of God through the Spirit’s work.
If you want to have the amazing privilege of coming into God’s family, you can only do that through the One True Son… by being ‘In Him’. If you want to inherit eternal life, you need to die to the old household of slavery to sin and rise to life in Messiah Jesus. It’s your one chance of royal blood, guys.
The horror of this is that the authorities label Jesus as belonging to another household, the household of the Lord of the High Places, the Lord of the Flies, the Accuser, the satan. This blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, this deliberate labelling of light as darkness will end badly Jesus warns. The authorities say that Jesus is in league with the satan, but Jesus shows that doesn’t make sense. If he is casting out satan, if he is destroying satan’s kingdom, then from their view that would suggest that satan’s kindom is divided and coming to an end. Rather, satan’s kingdom is coming to an end because a stronger Champion has arrived, the One embodying God’s kingdom is near.
Verse 27: “No-one can enter the strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.”
This is the central claim of Jesus, that God’s kingdom has come and satan’s kingdom, the strong man’s house is being plundered. This links in with what Jesus says to Simon Peter in Matthew 16:18, that the church would break down the gates of hell. The doors of satan’s household would not prevail as the church plunders the strong man’s house rescuing people and bringing them into the kingdom of light.
This is our calling, folks, as the true family of God in Jesus, to be those who plunder the strong man’s house, rescuing people from the kingdom of darkness and bringing them into the kingdom of light.
Too often we look around the world and around our situation and we see what looks like satan’s kingdom continuing in strength. But the truth is the opposite. Satan’s days are numbered and his household is being plundered by Jesus and those in Him. This is the vision we need to set before ourselves, as the new, true family of God, those who, in the power of the Spirit, are doing God’s will.
Now, I want to take a few moments to talk about family dynamics in this sermon on being the family of God.
There are two aspects to this, one is our family relationships as church, the other is our natural family relationships.
In regard to our family relationships as church, we need to recognise that God’s call in Jesus and allegiance to Him and His family goes above natural family loyalty. For some of you this will mean you will face rejection and opposition for choosing Jesus. For all of us this means we need to work at being what we are, the eternal family of God. We need to cultivate our family bonds that break down culture, tribe, skin, blood. We have hardly begun in this regard. What would it look like if we gathered as family to eat together, to do life together, how would that look to the world? Wouldn’t that be truly beautiful that the widow, the fatherless, the unmarried or childless, that we were all included in a more powerful expression of family than anything we could try to construct through wedding ceremonies etc etc. That’s our challenge to start being family in a deeper way.
The second aspect is our natural family relationships. The call of God doesn’t mean we disregard our duties to our physical family. Paul tells people not to break their marriages up because one is not a believer. Rather, our call in our physical families is to reflect again the family values of love and faithfulness. Remember that marriage is meant to be a picture of the Messiah and the church (Eph 5:31,32). Love and faithfulness reflecting the Messiah and the church. This means that those who are married and call themselves followers of Messiah Jesus must flee impurity, lust, adultery, and hatred. Our marriages, our families are to reflect the faithfulness and love of God, and that is a high calling. There can be no room for violence in the marriage relationship or in family life. This especially applies to husbands but can also apply to parent – child relationships and other family relationships. How can physical abuse be accepted when husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church? How can hatred, and a heart of murder, be associated with the call to reflect faithfulness and love? Similarly, lust and a heart of adultery must not be tolerated where we are called to faithful, pure, selfless love.
If anyone here is violent to their spouse or family member, then you need to hear this and stop, and if necessary get someone to hold you accountable. If anyone here is allowing lust or adultery to pollute the marriage relationship, then you need to hear this and stop, and if necessary get someone to hold you accountable. And if you are facing violence, I would encourage you to seek outside help so that you are not in danger.
I am sad that this must be addressed, but I feel that in a discussion of what it means to be the true, new family of God, in Jesus, we need to turn over some stones that sometimes are left unturned and that are shameful to the name of Jesus. All of us are incomplete in our representing God’s love and faithfulness in our lives, but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore clear issues that do violence to the name of God.
In Jesus, we have been adopted into God’s family, we are the concrete realisation of God’s covenant promises to Abraham. We show ourselves to be ‘in the family’ by our love for Jesus, our love for each other and by doing God’s will in the power of the Spirit. This family is an eternal family that calls us to a deeper allegiance than blood. I truly believe that as we work out more fully what it means to be in the household, the family of Messiah Jesus, we will see his resurrection power at work in us and through us plundering the strong man’s house, bringing more names into the Book of Life that documents those who are part of the eternal family of God.
