When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, "He is out of his mind."
The relatives of Jesus thought they had a better idea of what Jesus' priorities should be then Jesus himself. But they only knew about the ministry of Jesus from a distance, having heard that the crowds said, "He is out of his mind". Jesus, they must have thought, was making a spectacle of himself, for the sake of drawing to himself large numbers of people. They could not tolerate this apparent megalomania from one who, to their minds, was no one special. They felt in some measure responsible for his choices and that those choices reflected back negatively on themselves. Thus they were not content merely to persuade Jesus to change his plans but even "set out to seize him". But for all that, they didn't really understand what Jesus was about. Nor could they grasp his mission at a distance and through the lens of what others said about him. They were, in the first place, too concerned about their own reputation to make an unbiased investigation.
The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said,
"He is possessed by Beelzebul,"
and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."
Jesus had been charged by the crowds with being a lunatic. Now some scribes charged him with something worse, deception, in the name of darkness. They suggested that the apparent good deeds that were motivating people to follow him were actually only possible because he was in league with Satan himself. But Jesus answered that if Satan was actually responsible for what Jesus was doing, casting out evil spirits and setting captives free, he would in fact be undermining his own demonic kingdom. If even the prince of evil was divided between empowering the genuine good deeds done by Jesus and his other more typically evil pursuits he was pursuing a strategy that was obviously foolish and eventually doomed. Satan really had no interest in letting go any of his "property" and for this reason guarded it as a "strong man".
But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property
unless he first ties up the strong man.
Jesus was the one who was finally strong enough to bind the devil and set free those whom he held captive. This statement of Jesus was a direct contradiction to the accusation that he was working for the devil. No, he said, he in fact came to destroy him.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil (see First John 3:8).
At the beginning when the snake had successfully tempted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden he gained sway over creation, and the ability to tempt and manipulate human creatures through their fallen minds and wills. They could not, in such a state, love God consistently with heart, mind, and strength. But after the fall God not only cursed the serpent he made a promise of restoration and salvation for his creatures.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.
Jesus, then, was the one who would finally crush the head of the serpent. This would happen definitively at the cross when the devil, as it were, overplayed his hand, and he and sin and death were defeated. But it was this same victory that was already beginning to manifest itself in the healings and exorcisms Jesus performed.
But he said to them in reply,
"Who are my mother and my brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.
In response to being misunderstood from so many different angles Jesus invited his followers to understand him by becoming intimately related to him. He suggested that the understanding him through the bonds of a disciple pursuing the will of God was an even better perspective than that possible for one who was merely related to him by blood. Even relatives, as we saw, were subject to biased misunderstandings. Naturally no one in that time and culture could conceive of any relationship closer than that. But Jesus proposed that the bonds uniting a faithful disciple to her Lord were even deeper than that of blood relationship and more truly familial bonds than those implied by the traditional conception of family. We are quick to add that this was no sleight to his mother, since she was his mother in both senses. She, because of her fiat, sought the will of God in her own life more than any other, save Jesus himself.
We ought to be encouraged by this statement of Jesus of how close to him it is possible to come. And to this same end we should not be discouraged if we ourselves are said to be crazy and disingenuous in this pursuit. If Jesus was misunderstood, who was himself the truth incarnate, how can we hope to avoid sharing that fate? We may not look successful in the eyes of the world. Our friends and relatives may suggest alternative paths that are more socially acceptable. But we know that there is something going on within us, something Jesus himself is doing within our hearts, that we ought not trade for the world.
Therefore, we are not discouraged;
rather, although our outer self is wasting away,
our inner self is being renewed day by day.
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