Jesus' Family think He's Nuts.

Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:28-30, Luke 8:19-21 tells the story of Jesus’ difficulties with His family while He was trying to perform His ministry. Mark 3:21 reveals the true nature of those feelings. I will tell the troubling reaction of Jesus’ family to His ministry in my own words.

When Jesus and His disciple chums returned home the people of the village mobbed them. It was a madhouse, the dudes could hardly get to chow down on the Chinese take out they bought. The scribes who followed Jesus from Jerusalem were really jealous and started telling the crowd that Jesus was doin all these miracles by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. The crowd wasn’t very bright (they were democrats) so they started belivin the scribes.

Then Jesus had to call the crowd over to Him and straighten them out. Jesus said, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” Then Jesus looked at the scribes and said, “I am telling you the truth all sins are forgivable except one, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is guilty of an eternal sin.” Jesus meant that the scribes had equated Him with Satan and that was something that would not stand in the eyes of God.

But when Jesus made this statement he really steamed the scribes because he had placed Himself in a very distinct category (claiming He had the Holy Spirit). Even Jesus’ mother and his brothers were thinking He was coo coo. So they went over to see Jesus when He was speaking to a bunch of people in a house. They asked if someone could tell Jesus to come out because they wanted to speak with Him. So the crowd told Jesus that His family was outside wishing to speak with Him. But Jesus was no fool and knew what was happening. He knew the scribes had put pressure on His family to shut Him up and that’s why they wanted to speak with Him. They were gonna take Him home so He could rest and return to His senses.

Then Jesus said to the crowd, “Who are my mother and my brothers? “Whoever does the will of God is my mother and my brothers and my sisters.”

At face value the story ends there. However, the mere fact the his mother and brothers have come to take him away to the funny farm serves as a reminder as to how much resistance there was to Jesus’ ministry. More than likely the scribes put pressure on Jesus’ family to the point of threatening them with expulsion from the synagogue if they did not quiet Jesus down. Since His brothers did not believe He was the messiah (John 7:5) they would have had grave concerns over these threats by the religious leaders. Jesus’ brothers probably had families of their own and did not want their own children mocked by other children for being expelled from synagogue worship.