Tell me the story again: A meditation on Mark 3:20 - 35

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19, KJV

Most people who attend local fellowships I assume are already in the know of the particulars of the first Christmas story: virginal Mary great with child, the carpenter Joseph, the journey to Bethlehem already overwhelmed with people because of the Census, the manger, the star, the shepherds and the wise men who came from the east seeking the new born king. When I was a boy every December 1^st and every December 24^th I heard the story again read from our family Bible by my mom or dad by the light of our Advent candle to say nothing of the weekly gospel readings at church read during the Advent season. Yes, the Christmas story from Luke is as familiar to me as Rudolf, Frosty and C. Clement Moore's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

But because I know the story so well means its also possible for me to “forget” what it means or – God forbid! - not get what it means at all. Look at Mary. Is there anybody else in that story that is more close to it than her? She alone feels the wonder when Jesus first begins to move within her. She carries him to term and delivers him in the hay in the stable behind the inn. She nurses and nurturers this baby and watches him grow and develop, in time, into a man. But just because you're involved in the story and have a part to play in it doesn't mean you necessarily understand what is going on. Sometimes you can be as much in the dark as everyone else.

Fast forward thirty-some years. Mary's son is a full grown man now and has begun the work he was born to do. But that work, as she and everyone else soon finds out, is at the same time amazing and wonderful as it is perplexing and embarrassing. In Capernaum where he is living now he heals people. Those demonized by unclean spirits are set free. Crowds hound him day and night and, at times, threaten to trample him like groupies would a rock star today. At the same time his work and his words have a penchant for alienating him from the religious establishment. Some of the teachers of the law are so incensed and offended by what he is saying and doing that they are out for blood – his!

Back in Nazareth twenty-some miles away, Mary keeps on hearing stories passed on to her by those who saw him do such things as forgiving a paralyzed person's sins (and then healing him for good measure!) and taking up with such riff-raff like tax collectors and their ilk (see Mark 2-3). What is going on? But when she is told that he's so overwhelmed by all those who are looking for him to pray for them that he doesn't even have time to eat, she's heard enough. She calls Jesus' brothers together, grown men themselves now, and essentially tells them its time for an intervention. In fact, the Greek adverbial phrase that is translated “they went to take charge of him” (Mark 3:21) means essentially to drag him by force if he won't come of his own accord.

The way Mark tells it, two opposing forces in chapter 3 are on a collision course with him. On the one hand, Mary and her sons are coming down from Nazareth to hog-tie him if necessary and take him home because in their estimation his new-found fame had made him crazy (v. 21). At the same time Jewish theologians are coming down from Jerusalem to discredit the miracles he had performed by claiming he was able to do such amazing things only because he was in league with the devil (v. 22). Incredible. The people who should know him better – his family – and the people who should know the Scriptures better – the religious experts – strangely find themselves agreeing on this one point: he must be stopped and forcibly if necessary.

Say what?

Okay, I get why the theologians have got themselves all worked up in a lather. He's not just a boat-rocker proposing a renewal of the ancient tradition come down to them from Moses; he's come to do away with it altogether. And his star is rising with the people. But what's with Mary? Doesn't she recall the angel and everything he said to her? Doesn't she remember what the old man said to her that day she and Joseph presented their son at the Temple that their child was destined “for the fall and rising of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34, NKJV)? Could she have forgotten what those breathless shepherds racing in from the hills outside of Bethlehem told her that night about what the angel had said to them? If Mary, who is center stage in every creche I've ever seen, can't put two and two together, what hope is there for the rest of us who weren't even there?

When Jesus is informed that his mother and his brothers have just arrived in town and would like a word with him, he doesn't excuse himself from the crowd so that he can have some private moments with his family. Instead he uses their appearance as a teaching point. Looking around at all the people sitting around him he states rhetorically, “'Who do you think are my mother and brothers?...Right here, right in front of you—my mother and my brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.'” (Mark 3:33-35, The Message) Wow. How's that for a brush off? I can't imagine any mother not being offended.

Of course, Mary at that time is pretty much like everyone else in the story: clueless. When he speaks of destroying the temple, they think of Herod's impressive edifice reduced to rubble in Jerusalem. When he teaches on the kingdom of God they see a throne and a country with borders. He is speaking of things far greater. In time, she'll come to see him and the things he taught differently as will the rest of those who are in that circle that follow him about. As Augustine put it, "...Mary is more blessed in receiving the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ. For to the one who said, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you!' he himself answered: 'Blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it.'"  At that particular moment, however, even she's got a thing or two yet to learn about maybe the greatest story ever told; that God came near to us in Jesus and made it possible for us to see and hear him up close and personal. All the more reason for a rube like me to hear the story told again in hopes that it might continue to provoke me into the humility and obedience it demands.