Who are My Mother and My Brothers?

Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This epiphany in Lent, we're back in the Gospels,

specifically the Gospel of Mark. We are seeing

the revelation of God in Jesus. Mark is showing

us the true King becomes a servant for us. He

says right at the heart, the Son of Man came

not to be served, but to serve and to give His

life as a ransom for many. And Mark is nearly

always asking his audience, what do you make

of that? So, what do you make of this good news?

We'd love to meet you and we hope you'll consider

coming and joining with us each Sunday morning

at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg.

You can find us online at SecondCityChurch .org

and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope

you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Lord in heaven

we thank you for your word. We thank you for

this mark and We pray that we would listen we'd

be those who have years to hear Even next week

how your word goes out like see that's being

sown and sometimes it falls on different kinds

of soil We pray that we would be so that receives

the word and bears much fruit So speak to us

Lord. We are listening and we desire to be brought

more and more into the life of Christ His name

we pray Amen. All right. This is the first Sunday

in Lent, as has been mentioned. And so I might

give you a little bit of a history lesson, both

because it's interesting and because it will

lead into my sermon, OK? So Lent has a 40 -day

practice. didn't really spread into the known

Christian world until probably the early fourth

century. I'm actually going to get to why that

was at the end of my sermon. But it really didn't

develop until widely as a practice the 40 days

preceding Easter other than Sundays, until about

the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. We

know that actually it wasn't something that was

sort of encouraged to the whole church more broadly

actually. until the late sixth century with Pope

Gregory the first. And I know some of you are

saying, aha, I knew it. The Roman Catholic practice

of works, righteousness, these kinds of things.

And I want to say, well, not exactly. There are

concerns we should have. Some of you know the

great Puritan theologian in England, John Owen,

writing in the seventh century. And he warned

people how even Good things that we do to seek

to put to death sin can be those things that

we actually say, look at, look God, look what

I did. And Jesus of course tells us that that's

the same temptation that we should always be

careful of in the Sermon on the Mount that we

heard on Ash Wednesday if you were here. Anyway,

that kind of approach certainly is not good,

but what you have to understand is that from

the earliest days, and many of you have heard

me say this, Easter was really the great day

of Christian baptism. That does not mean that

there were not other days in which Christians

were baptized. There were. But the practice of

the early church was to primarily have baptisms

on Easter. And fasting before baptisms was practiced,

as far as we know, from the earliest Christians.

Fasting as a way of preparation. Are you going

to give yourself to the life of Jesus? So this

is kind of interesting. We know that the early

church father Irenaeus wrote about the practice

of fasting before Easter because he actually

taught how there was a debate going on about

when that started and actually to what extent

you would fast before Easter. Here's an interesting

thing the debate at the time when Irenaeus was

writing was not whether or not you fasted before

Easter It was to help for how long you fasted

before Easter. And so he wrote in the letter

he wrote this Variations and observance did not

originate in our own day, but very much earlier

in the time of our forefathers Anybody know what

our own day for Irenaeus was Well, people think

he was born in the year 130, and he died in the

year 202. We do know that much. So our own day

is mid -late second century for Irenaeus. So

when he talks about the forefathers, who's he

talking about? Well, we know Irenaeus was a disciple

of Polycarp, and we know Polycarp studied under

anybody? John, the Apostle John. So it is very

likely that when Irenaeus is talking about the

debate around how long you fast before Easter

did not originate with him in his day in the

mid -second century, he's telling the forefathers

he very likely could be meaning the Apostle John.

Pretty interesting. That also makes sense actually

of why we find the practice of fasting commanded

before baptism in the Didache. The Didache is

one of the earliest church documents that we

have. The Didache is also known, because this

is how it begins, as the Lord's teaching through

the twelve apostles to the nations. We don't

really know exactly when it was written, but

people think that it was written either as early

as AD 70, meaning before probably the Gospel

of John and the Book of Revelation, or possibly

up to like AD 150. Either way, it's one of the

earliest documents we have of the life of the

church. And the Didache says this regarding baptism.

But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast,

meaning the one who's doing the baptizing fast,

and the baptized, the one who's being baptized,

and whoever else can. So as a community, Consider

what is taking place in baptism. This person

is giving their life to following Jesus, which

is say they're putting off an old way of being

repenting and turning and giving their life to

Jesus. And the Didache, again, one of the earliest

documents we have from the life of the church

says, the person doing the baptizing should fast,

the person being baptized should fast, and the

whole community should if possible. And it says

specifically a fast of one or two days, which

goes along with Irenaeus saying, The amount of

time is not necessarily specified. Anyway, the

earliest church writings, these earliest church

writings encourage fasting before baptism and

specifically before Easter. And that developed,

and I'm gonna get to why this developed, to mirror

our Lord's own fasting in the temptation in the

wilderness of 40 days. Okay, why am I sharing

this to introduce to you this? incredibly long

passage from Mark. It's for this reason. There

was a connection from the earliest life in the

church of giving up some level and for some period

of time of earthly comforts before being baptized

because you were to count the cost of following

Jesus. Is it worth it? Do you really believe

that to do the will of the Father and following

Jesus is worth it? You were to ask yourself whether

or not you would follow Jesus to the end. Will

you give your life, all of your life, over to

Him? And as is often the case, will you give

your life, all of your life, over to Him? When

your friends mock you? When you might lose your

jobs? And frankly, when you might lose your life?

When you have so much taken So we have this long

passage before us and I mean genuinely it almost

feels like it's too long to give a sermon on

and it's already 1056, right? Just think of it

as 956 and I have a lot longer Yeah, all right

somebody's clapping I maybe that was to keep

awake We have this long passage before us and

And so I want you to open up those Bibles, okay?

Grab a few Bible in front of you. If you did

not, bring one. And don't do this with your phones

as much, because I do think you're not going

to be able to see some of the stuff that's going

on if you have it on your phones. I think there's

a great gift of the technology that we have in

having our Bibles on our phones. But we lose

something, I think, with being able to see things

and how they work together at times, okay? So

please have your Bibles open. And let's just

jump into the first paragraph there, okay? The

first paragraph begins in verse 7. And what we

see, it says, Jesus withdrew with his disciples

to the sea and a great crowd followed him. And

then it says specifically from Galilee and Judea.

So Galilee, think of Galilee as the northern

part around the Sea of Galilee, right? Sea of

Galilee kind of off to the west and to the northwest,

that's Galilee. And then Judea is on the other

side of Samaria, right? Down near where Jerusalem

is, it's a ways down south. And so you have the

immediate region, then you have a farther region

that's down in the south. And it says, and Jerusalem

and Edomia. So Jerusalem's the main capital city

that's been important to mention. The capital

city of the history of Israel. And Edomia would

have been actually the region across from the

Dead Sea from Jerusalem, more or less. It was

the whole region. Sort of think of Judea on the

western side of the Dead Sea, Edomia on the eastern

side of the Dead Sea, okay? And then it says,

and from beyond the Jordan, that's the Transjordan,

that's like the region across largely from the

Jordan River going from the Sea of Galilee down

to the Dead Sea, that region over there. And

then it says, and from around Tyre and Sidon.

Tyre and Sidon are sort of all the way on the

west coast and then the northwest coast from.

Gali, the region of Gali, which is to say, in

some ways, what he's doing is he's saying from

all over the place, all of the sort of, what

am I thinking of? Orientations of the compass.

But here's what's even more important, actually,

for you to understand. He is describing all of

the region of the 12 tribes of Israel, right?

Because a couple of the tribes were on the other

side of the Transjordan. I mean, he's describing

all the regions of the 12 tribes of Israel in

this description here. Okay, so there's such

a large crowd around Jesus here that Jesus tells

the disciples to get in the boat because they

might be crushed. All these people are coming

to him. And why are they doing this? Because

he had healed many. He'd done great miraculous

things. He had done what nobody else had possibly

ever done and people would hurt and of course

if you heard that somebody was you know healing

somebody especially before any kind of modern

medicine you would have you would have done all

you could to go and to see that person and actually

it says Specifically even that they might touch

him right verse 10 Yeah, they so that he so that

all who had diseases pressed around him to touch

him Which is to say they wanted his power I could

just touch right they wanted to get something

from Jesus. They wanted something out of him

Listen, okay 45 % of high school students say

they are persistently hopeless and despondent

45 % of high school students That is a sobering

statistic Since the year 2000, the number of

Americans without one close personal friend has

gone up four times. It's gone up four times without

one close personal friend. Let me hit noses.

Since the year 2000, the same year, the number

of Americans who say they are in the lowest category

of happiness has increased 50%. Those are just

deeply sad statistics. Interestingly, maybe some

of you know this, but in 2019 the Pew Research

Center did a large, large study looking at eight

different indicators of happiness. specifically

was asking the question does religious practice

and belonging to a religious community influence

these eight indicators of happiness and You probably

heard it's kind of you know news at the time

and maybe you still know this That they asked

are they are these indicators negatively affected

positively affected or neutrally affected by

religious adherence All of them were positively

affected. Oh Right. It was just overwhelmingly

positive. People are more likely to have friends.

They are more likely to live healthier lives.

They are more likely to be generous with their

time and with their money. All these things that

actually promote happiness and a better life.

It's actually kind of amazing. I'll say this.

In fact, if you're not a Christian, I would strongly

consider you just go to church. I mean, like,

even if you think it's all a joke, like, you're

likely to live longer, you're likely to have

better friendships, you are actually likely to

be happier. Okay. It's a weird kind of apologetic

for sort of Christian practice, but, you know,

just try it on. And that's kind of what is happening

here, right? That just like, hey, maybe I can

get something out of this dude. Let's all go

check him out. Let's go see what's happening.

He'll heal me if I just touch him. I have to

fall down and worship him. I have to give my

life over to him. Why doesn't he touch me? They're

going to Jesus because of what he can give them.

But an interesting thing happens in this. It

seems as though Mark makes this big shift actually

in this story. Near the end I want to seriously

hope hopefully show you how all these sections

here tie together. But what happens is that Jesus

then moves from the sea and he goes up to the

mountain, and of course there's a lot of people

with him, but there he appoints his disciples,

and all the people are listed there, right? The

sons of thunder and all the rest are listed there.

But there's a phrase that he mentions twice,

and it's this, that he appoints the twelve. That's

mentioned in verses 14 and verse 16. And he appointed

12, beginning of 14, and then 16. He appointed

the 12. And why does Mark have to draw this out

for us? He says it twice. He's like, this is

part of the point of the whole thing. Well, to

a Jewish ear, that would have been absolutely

radical. You know, you better go up to the mountains.

Flee to northern Idaho, where no one will know

what kind of craziness is happening. You know?

The point of the 12 for a Jewish audience would

have been like saying all of Israel all of this

life where all of these tribes lived and that

have been so desperate all of their life together

is being reformulated around me I Mean Jesus

doing something in naming these 12 and mark is

highlighting for it for us for this to this to

us by mentioning it twice by saying He's saying

all of your sort of political endeavors all your

social endeavors all your economic life all of

your life It's now under me Now this is interesting

actually I literally I just I just learned this

So there's a group of us, you know, and I would

encourage you to maybe jump in you don't have

to jump in at the beginning But there's a group

of us who are trying to read the Bible through

together over the course of two years We're getting

together for a monthly breakfast. So some of

us did this yesterday And Will had a great question

when we were talking about Genesis about some

of the genealogies. And so I was reading a little

bit about some of the genealogies, and he and

I were talking yesterday before the breakfast

with others. And it's really interesting. What

I learned was that actually for quite a few of

the major figures in the book of Genesis, 12

of their descendants are listed afterwards. Okay,

so this is the case, not just for Israel. Of

course, Jacob is renamed Israel because he read

wrestles with God, which is how we get the name

Israel for the tribes of Israel, the 12 sons

of Israel. But this is also the case for Esau,

for Nahor, and for Ishmael. And what's happening

is that 12 at least appears to have been sort

of a cultural thing. There's 12 descendants and

that would have been the people of that kind

of main leader. and their descendants would have

fallen under that main leader. This is what Jesus

is grabbing onto. All of your life is reordered

now around me. It would have been a massive statement

to make in the community in which he found himself.

Everyone would have understood this. Many would

have known that the prophecies of the Old Testament

said that when God acted definitively, Israel

would be reunified. How many of you have heard

of the prophecy of the Valley of the Dry Bones

being brought back to life? I bet a lot of you

have heard that story. Maybe you've heard of

when the Holy Spirit would descend and be given,

right? Talk about Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 37.

Well, the second half of Ezekiel 37 is saying,

when this happens, when God works to bring new

life to the dead, when the Holy Spirit comes,

There's this image that Rebecca Redforce that

probably was lost on us These two sticks being

brought together what that the 12 tribes will

be reunified. That's what that image is talking

about and She was saying I am doing it and it

demands all of your life All of your life is

to be given over to this new reality of what

God is doing this new community formed around

Christ Now there's a big difference between coming

to Jesus and just wanting to be healed of your

diseases and just being willing to come out and

kind of touch him and see if he gets some power

and Jesus saying no all of your life is now under

me I'm creating a new community that touches

on every aspect of your being and it is under

my Lordship my kingship and What do you do with

that? I mean, some of us want to go into Jesus

and say, can you just give me some stuff? And

Jesus says, you better give me all of your life.

What do we do with that? There's a few responses,

okay? There's a few responses that we can have

from that. And there's a few responses here in

this text. Let me walk through some of them,

okay? So keeping your Bible open. First, the

first response to this is, You're crazy. He's

crazy. Right, right? This is literally the next

thing, okay? So verse 20, when he went home and

the crowd gathered again so they could not even

eat, when his family heard it, they went out

to seize him for they were saying, he's out of

his mind. Right, so there's this response to

what Jesus is doing that comes immediately after

the appointing of the Twelve that is first. You're

crazy. This is crazy. He's out of his mind. Maybe

this is going too far, Jesus. Maybe what you're

inviting us into is too much. And of course,

this is really wild because we have, of course,

very, very good reason to believe that in the

context of Mark chapter three, his family means

his mother and his brother and his sisters, right?

Or at least his mother and his brothers, because

that's who's mentioned later on at the end of

the chapter. Which is to say, Mary even is there.

Who we know at the birth of Jesus was highly

favored Whom all generations were to be called

blessed We also know that she follows Jesus to

the end right at the cross here But it is saying

Jesus. Maybe you've gone too far Maybe you're

asking too much his family together says He's

out of his mind And that's a real response that,

of course, people have when you hear Jesus say,

hey, I'm ordering all things. This whole life

is now ordered around me. All of your life is

to be given over to Christ. And sometimes we

go, that's a little too much. You're a little

crazier. Okay, the second response is this. He's

a demon, okay? So verse 22, look with me down

there. The scribes who came from Jerusalem were

saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul and by the

prince of demons. He casts out the demons. He's

demonic. Now of course we've already seen the

last number of weeks that the scribes and Pharisees

were in opposition to Jesus, right? They weren't

in favor of him. But what I also do want you

to see is that this is kind of a real response

even today still, right? He's demonic. He's gone

too far in what he's demanding and this whole

reordering life around himself. So there's many

religious folk and even many folk who claim the

Christian religion who look at Jesus even today

and they'll say, I like Jesus, but you can't

ask me to do that, right? I'll give you Sunday

morning, but don't ask me to allow my Christian

faith to touch my work life. Don't demand that

I kind of go to you and say, here are my kids

and I don't know how to parent them, so I'm gonna

actually study the scriptures and say, what does

it look like to follow Jesus here? I'll give

you this much Jesus, but don't. This part's mine.

These religious leaders, the scribes here from

Jerusalem, actually say when Jesus says this

much, you've got to say, no way, you're not of

God. He's gone too far. Let's give our religious

explanations. He has the demon. They categorize

them in religious ways. So of course, Jesus again

says, hey, that doesn't work. Houses that are

against themselves, they don't stand. Houses

that are divided don't last he says if I'm casting

out a demon Why would I have one which has already

been his practice and mark right saying this

doesn't this doesn't work this way Anyway what

I think a significant part of Mark's point here

and putting this right here is that there can

be Real responses to Jesus that are a rejection

of what he or what he is doing that are religiously

orient Right. You can be a religious person Still

say I don't want to follow Jesus there The third

response that we have here is I'll just say hardened

hearts Okay, so look with me down at verses 28

and 29. I'll read that again for us Truly I say

to you all sins will be forgiven the children

of man and whatever blasphemies they utter But

whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never

has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.

Maybe you've asked this question. I've been asked

it quite a bit. What is the unforgivable sin?

And I've heard it said, and I think this is probably

true, that if you're wondering, you have a soft

heart to receiving the answer, then you haven't

committed it. So don't be overcome with worry

about that. But it's a good question. What is

it? You know, does God tend to not like all sin?

But man, if you do this one, you're gonna really

get his ire. Is there one sin that if you just

happen to do it, forget it? Well, first, what

did Jesus literally just say, right? This is

what he says, all sin will be forgiven the children

of man. And whatever blasphemes they utter. There

is just an unbelievable grace. Right? That's

the first thing that's going on. So much grace.

But he does give this warning, so what is it?

I think the best explanation, and I also think

why this is right here in the context of Mark

Mark 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, right after he was being called the

Prince of Demons, Is that once you have labeled

the Holy Spirit's work, the work of the devil,

it's hard to go back on that. There's a context

for Jesus saying this right here. It's this context

of saying you are working for the Prince of Demons.

Once you start labeling the work of the Holy

Spirit as the work of the devil, it's hard to

go back. Which is to say there is this willful,

obstinate rejection of how God has revealed himself.

And that is a hard, hard, hardedness towards

the end. N .T. Wright, in his commentary, suggests

that we should think of this actually like conspiracy

theories. Way of kind of us getting this, okay?

Which is that you can have all of the evidence

presented to you that goes against your theory.

And still you will think that all evidence is

simply confirming what you already believe All

this evidence that is going against what you

think and you're all like, yep It's I still entirely

in belief and I think all of what you're saying

is crazy Think about like this you can see all

of the images of around earth and You can still

believe that all of the nations of the world

that sent people out into outer space that at

the time, by the way, during the Cold War were

threatening nuclear warfare against one another,

were somehow in cahoots because they didn't want

you to know that the world is actually flat.

You believe them, right? Somehow all these nations

of the world were working together some conspiracy.

Or it's more like this kind of conspiracy theory

that you have decided firmly that the doctor

who is offering to perform a life -saving operation

on you is in fact a sadistic murderer. And there

is no way you are ever going to consent to allowing

him to do the operation. That's actually the

analogy that works with what Jesus is doing here.

He is offering you life and you say there's no

way you are of the devil. And Jesus says if you

approach God that way, With that level of hard

-heartedness. There is simply no hope It is an

affront against the Holy Spirit's work Now my

point is that there is a response to Jesus that

is a hard -hearted response But there's a there's

a way of going to Jesus and saying I know this

is what you demand you say hey I'm reordering

all life around me and you say no way don't want

anything to do with it don't want Hard -hearted

Look what is said at the end of this passage,

right? Verse 30, it says, this part ends, he

has an unclean spirit. They double down on their

belief. Begins with, he's got a demon, they double

down at the end after he says this, unclean spirit.

Okay, but here's the thing, this actually, This

is part of why I think all these texts are working

together, is that this is said again and again.

So if you go back actually earlier on, verse

11, there's a response to Jesus, right? And whenever

the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before

him and cried, you're the son of God. But if

we go down, we actually see this kind of reaction

to Jesus repeated. We're constantly being put...

Mark is constantly giving us responses to Jesus.

So you go down to verse 21, and when his family

heard it, they went out to see him, for they

were saying, he's out of his mind. And then if

you go down a little bit farther, right, to verse

30, sorry, actually let's start with verse 22,

the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were

saying, he's possessed by Beelzebul. If you go

down to verse 30, again, it says, then they were

saying, he has an unclean spirit. You see how

each of these are being tied together around

what do we do with this? What do we do with Jesus

saying, all of life is under me? All of it is

under me. And there's all these responses, and

most of them are actually saying, we don't want

you. And yet, and yet, Jesus does offer us another

way. And because we're using the language of

this text, I'll just say that the other way is

doing the will of God. So verse 31. It says this

and his mother and his brothers came and standing

outside they sent to him and called him and a

crowd was standing around him and they said to

him your mother and your brothers are outside

seeking you and he answered them who are my mother

and my brothers and Looking about at those who

sat around him. He said here are my mother my

brothers for whoever does the will of God He

is my brother and my sister and my mother There

is another response to Jesus. There is another

response to Jesus. Here it says the other response

is doing the will of God. This is not works righteousness.

Just like a fast does not need to be works righteousness,

though it can be construed that way. This is

saying yes. To Jesus being over all things. For

everything. This is saying yes to Jesus saying

I'm reordering it all around myself and all of

your life will now be under me Saying yes to

the will of God Over the 12 tribes of Israel,

but again and again they are said to be the family

of God What is baptism but entrance in to the

family of God to the life of the body of Christ

There is a response to God that is not thinking

he's crazy, that's not thinking he's of Satan,

that is not hard -heartedness. There's a response

to God that says, yes, I want to follow you.

That my whole being, all of my life is yours.

All of my life belongs to you. And here's the

truth that we're learning in all this. There's

just no middle way. with Jesus. No middle way

with following Jesus. He's either crazy or he's

wildly wrong, so much that we've all been duped,

or he's working for the devil, or he's the Lord.

Lord of all. And there's times in our lives when

we must make a decision. We hear, right, Jesus

reorder our lives around him. We go, I don't

know, do I have to give you that? Decision. And

for many ways, many, you know, baptism is the

life of entering into that. If it's a huge decision,

are you gonna do it? Are you gonna go all the

way with Christ? Today will you give all up to

following Jesus, doing the will of your Father

in heaven. So let me get back to the history

of Lent and then I'll close, okay? Earlier this

week, I mentioned to some of you how the development

of Lent had to do with the early controversy

in the church. I actually got the name wrong.

That controversy was called Novatianism. What

had happened is that there were a lot of people

that were baptized and a part of the church in

the mid second century. And when the persecutions

began under the Roman Emperor, Odysseus, they

renounced the faith. You know, when push come

to shove, When it meant their life might be taken

from them, they said, I don't want anything to

do with this Jesus. And then what happened is

that once the persecution stopped, they were

like, you know what? I read that Pew Research

from 2019 in the future, and it said my life's

gonna be better if I'm actually part of a church

community. I kinda wanna go back into that community

now. And a lot of people said, you can't do that.

You can't take Jesus when you want. so there

were some church leaders like Novation who was

a church leader in North Africa and Tertullian

many of you have probably heard of Tertullian

he was the famous one that said the blood of

the martyrs is the seed of the church who believed

that once you renounce the faith in the midst

of persecution you should not be allowed back

into the life of church now there were others

on the other side like the great Cyprian of Carthage

or Ambrose of Milan who baptized st. Augustine

And they believe that you should be allowed to

be welcomed back into the life of the Church.

But you must actually spend some time, like actually

saying, are you going to give your life fully

to Jesus? And that was happening, that controversy

was happening in the second half, again after

this persecution that began in the year 250 under

Roman Emperor Odysseus. That was the controversy

of the Church of the latter half of the third

century. And it was into that, out of that controversy,

that actually around the time of the Council

of Nicaea, which happened in 325, that lent,

as we think of it as a 40 -day question of whether

or not we are going to follow Jesus, developed.

So they took the pattern of Christ giving up

the blessings of this world like bread in his

temptation, and they said, let's do that as a

community. Let's enter into this light and ask

one another together, are we going to follow

him to the end? And brothers and sisters, that

is what Jesus is asking you this morning. Will

you give your life to him entirely, completely?

Will you? Lord, we are glad that we do not live

in the time of the persecutions that happened

in 250 and thereafter. But God, I pray that we

would be those who hear the reality of what you

were doing in Christ and long to do the will

of God, the will of the Father, and follow Jesus

to the end. Lead us in that, we ask, in His precious

name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Second

City Sermons podcast. We hope this sermon has

encouraged you to worship God and to celebrate

the gospel of Jesus. Please consider subscribing

to this podcast and joining us in person each

Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us online at

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and YouTube. Thanks again for listening. God

bless.