Patience: Mark 3:31-32

Jesus has patience and wisdom like no other.  How many times am I the victim of other people’s sinfulness and I want to lash out and expose how violated I feel?  How many times do I want to turn around and gossip about how wrong the other person was?  Human instinct is to judge when we are sinned against.  Not Jesus.  He forgives.  He even dies for those who would wound Him.

Jesus’ family once more comes to Him as He teaches among the crowd.  We had a similar encounter earlier in the chapter because they thought Jesus was out of His mind.  Clearly, they are still concerned about Him.  At least they don’t call Him insane this time!

Take a long look at how His family acts.  They stand outside and call for Him. 

Put this up against the actions of the people who brought the paralytic before Jesus that started off Mark 2.  Those people went onto His roof, cut through it, and found a way to get to Jesus.  The people with the paralytic were motivated to find Jesus.  They went to Him.

Jesus family isn’t there to find Jesus.  Jesus family is there to try and bring Him back in line.  Perhaps they saw Jesus as an embarrassment.  Perhaps they saw the growing crowd of unhappy religious elite and could smell the blood in the water.  Maybe they thought He was skirting His duty with the family business and no longer do His part as a carpenter.  We don’t know why they came to see Jesus, but we do know they didn’t feel the need to push their way through the crowd.

I think it is worse than that.  They stand off in the distance and call for Jesus to come to them.  Think about this in terms of authority.  Jesus’ family clearly sees themselves as the authoritative voice over Jesus.  They call for Him and expect Him to come to them.  Realizing that I wouldn’t have likely done any better in the moment, but I can’t imagine looking at the Son of God and feeling like I had authority over Him.  That’s because I’ve figured out the story of Jesus and I know His identity.  They were still in the process of figuring it out.  It’s also important to realize that by the time of the crucifixion, Jesus’ mother is there at the cross.  It’s also important to realize that several of Jesus’ brothers come on board after His death and find themselves in leadership positions in the early church.  They do figure it out eventually.

They haven’t it figured out here, though.  That’s an important point.  They are only in the process of figuring it out. Thus, they make a mistake and think they have authority over Jesus.  Yet, Jesus doesn’t give up on them.  He doesn’t give up on me.  He doesn’t give up on you, either.  Jesus has patience and wisdom like no other.