“Family Matters”

 

http://vimeo.com/4629886

 

We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (Ephesians 5:30)

 

           

If you and I were honest, we’d have to admit that often times our interests and thoughts fail to venture beyond the point of our immediate needs. It seems we’re always occupied with wondering, “What’s for supper?” or, “Where we can get something to drink?”

In his tenderness, mindful of our human frailty, Jesus would teach eternally valuable lessons using everyday items such as bread and water. Using bread, for example, he taught you and me what his food was – to do His Father’s will – as well as how we should spare no effort to feed on him, because he is the Bread from Heaven who feeds our souls forever. He employed water and grass and birds, among other common things, to teach us of his redeeming work – and of our supreme need for the salvation he alone offers.

No surprise, then, that on this Mother’s Day 2009, Jesus uses another everyday occurrence – his family seeking after him – to instruct you and me concerning a greater family.

 

Jesus teaches us first about the meaning of being in his family, particularly its nature and significance.

It’s important to bear in mind the context of the events described in verses 31-35. You’ll recall that before this, crowds pressed in on Jesus, hoping he would touch and thereby heal them; but Jesus eventually withdrew and called his apostles – his “inner circle” of chosen messengers – to himself. He already had faced opposition from the scribes and Pharisees, and he now had to endure the apparent skepticism of his family, who – we read in Mark 3:21 – had their doubts about Jesus’ mission. The scribes even accused Jesus of being a servant of the devil! In light of such opposition and, at a minimum, confusion, it’s interesting that Jesus would select such a providential opportunity to identify what it means “to be his.”

Generally speaking, the family is of great significance to human beings. You and I have a natural and unique attachment to our family members: not only do we share genetic traits, we also usually share a common cultural identity, sense of place and, perhaps, inheritance. Family normally signifies “commonality.” Scripturally, the family is the basic covenantal unit, instituted by God both for your comfort (spouses encourage one another just as parents, for instance, care for their young) and for your churching. St. Paul says your marriage must relate the Gospel – the love of Christ for his church and the reverence of the church for Christ – so that others, especially your children, may observe holiness in your life and learn of the Savior. Fathers are to provide for their children and to serve as the “pastors of the home.” The family truly is, and is to be, the “first church” you and I experience.

Family mattered to Jesus. We see this reality not only in the teaching His Word gives on familial relations but even in his compassionate actions on the Cross, when he linked his mother with St. John in a new “mother-son” relationship.

Family naturally matters to most of us, as we read in verses 31 to 33. As Jesus was teaching a crowd, his family came to the door and sent for him. His listeners made certain Jesus knew his relations were standing outside calling for him, just as many of you have come to me to let me know my parents have arrived or that Jennifer needs me. Family is, naturally, of importance to you and me; and their presence understandably demands our full attention.

 

But there is another family that truly is of greater significance: the family of God in Jesus Christ. It is this family you and I need to study this Mother’s Day.

Jesus poses a question worthy of your consideration today: “Who is my family?” In merely asking this question, our Lord is suggesting that there is a family that surpasses even your blood kin (not, of course, that you are to disparage or ignore your blood kin). There’s something more important to Jesus than sharing certain relatives with him, and that is union with him by faith and adoption into the family of Almighty God.

To be a member of Jesus’ family is to have something intimate and common with him, to have a share in him. It is to be related to him really and truly. This relationship is known as “union with Christ,” and it is encapsulated by the most-significant prepositional phrase in the universe: “in Christ.” In Christ, St. Paul says, you and I were chosen by the Father for salvation from before the foundation of the world. In Christ, you are named by his Name, credited with his perfect obedience to his Father’s law (which we call “righteousness”). In Christ you are declared positionally holy, and in Christ you will dwell in Glory forever. The Father placed your sin on him as he endured God’s full wrath on Good Friday, while the Father credited Jesus’ perfect obedience to you. So it is in Christ that you are made alive and that you enjoy all the blessings of God’s Covenant of Grace.

One of the blessings of being in Christ is that God the Father adopts you as His child in His true Son, Jesus. As a child of God, you are entitled to His Fatherly blessing, wisdom, chastisement, care, forgiveness and mercy – as well as an eternal inheritance in Christ. Considering that you and I previously were children of the devil, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 2, there can be no greater privilege than to be saved by grace and legally transferred into the family of the Living God. His is a spiritual family in which you and I are to reflect the holiness of our Father increasingly (just as you reflect some traits of your earthly father). And we are members of a family­: we can rely on one another for love, encouragement, chastisement and direction.

Being adopted into God’s family through your faith-union with Christ causes a new hope to dawn in your life and gives you a new, greater identity in Jesus. You are known now, and forevermore, primarily by his Name. You look not so much to an earthly inheritance but to one in Heaven. You have sweet communion with the Lord and with other believers – even if you differ widely from those other folks in terms of your ethnic background, skin coloration and tastes.

For those of you who come from a troubled home, or for those who have grown weary of dealing with an earthly inheritance, and for all of you who admit that you were children of the devil, deserving of God’s wrath, being a member of Christ’s eternal family is a blessed reality indeed.

 

Jesus secondly describes some key marks of being in his family: attending to his Word and doing the will of God.

“Who is my family?” Christ asked. He answered by sweeping his glance around the room at those who didn’t accuse him of having a devil or of being out of sorts, but who sat at his feet, like Mary in Martha’s household, listening to his teaching. To have a stake in Jesus, to be united to him mystically by faith, means that you receive his testimony about himself and feed on him by faith as you meet him in his Word. Detractors will surround you, just as they did true believers in Jesus’ day. Some folks will relegate you to “strange” status because you submit your beliefs about creation, about judgment, about this life and the next, to his teaching and not to the latest dictums of human intelligentsia. Having an eternal and perfectly intimate bond with Christ as your Savior begins with receiving his teaching, not only in your head but in your heart.

Jesus also said his family members “do the will of God.” Now, this statement at first seems rather broad; as one commentator observed, wouldn’t the Pharisees – Jesus’ enemies – have thought they, not he, were doing the will of God? So here we must consider the overall Scriptural witness about the “will of God” to see that first and foremost, the will of God is that you believe on Jesus, whom the Father has sent, as your Redeemer. Apart from heart trust in Christ as the One who suffered Hell on your behalf and earned Heaven for you, you cannot claim to be in the will of God.

Christ himself is the perfect embodiment of doing the will of God. As we’ve noted in our study of St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus wasn’t a rebel – he was a Revealer (of the invisible God) and a Fulfiller (of the law of God, down to the smallest portions of that law). He obeyed his Father’s will even in the darkest of hours – Gethsemane – and trusted in his Father’s truth and blessing despite the lies of Satan and the vicious opposition with which he met in his ministry. He came to earth to glorify His Father, which involved not only his active keeping of the law but also his suffering under the penalty of the law for your sins and mine. We’re told Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem like a flint, which neatly captures the obedience of our Lord.

It’s reasonable that in any family, members would bear some resemblance to one another. They share commonalties by virtue of their blood relation; but you also would expect members of the Rolison family to share certain interests and focuses. I know of one family, for instance, in which most all of the members are visual artists, and several other families who prize music.

Jesus’ family – if indeed you and I have been brought to new life in him by the work of the Spirit – must possess a common holiness and a shared journey toward Glory. Jesus’ family member will be about the business of trusting the Lord even when it’s easier to indulge the flesh or to verbally destroy a person who’s hurt you. Jesus’ family member will trust God with his tithe and time, even when there seems to be no money or time at all. Jesus’ brothers and sisters and family members resemble his image more and more every day, because union with him is a living reality.

Do you show the marks of being in his family?

 

Today is a day to celebrate mom – and, really, every woman of faith in your life. But what an occasion – providentially arranged by our Lord – to consider the deeper meaning of “family.”

It is a privilege, indeed the greatest of all, to bear the Name of Christ Jesus. His righteousness is credited to you, and you share in his victory over sin, death and every enemy. With that privilege, though, come responsibilities: to bear his Name honorably. To deal patiently, and in an edifying manner, with your brothers and sisters sitting around you this morning. To seek the expansion of this family through confessing Christ to the world (Jesus’ words are pretty open in verse 35: “whoever does the will of God”).

May your family, and especially the women of faith in it, know God’s richest blessings this Mother’s Day. More than that, may your family ever be oriented – and orient others – to the greater family of our living Lord Jesus.