Mark 3:20-21 "The Quest for a Crazy Jesus"

Introduction:

Jesus had been drawing big crowds everywhere He went. Even when He went out into the wilderness there were a lot of people who would follow Him and flock to Him once they found out where He was.

People sought Him out for healing and deliverance from evil spirits. And they had seen Jesus work miracles in both categories.

But Jesus was also creating quite a storm among the religious leaders of the day. They were observing all that was taking place and they were conspiring with the political officials in order to destroy Him.

Jesus had been ministering in the area around the Sea of Galilee and while there He had officially appointed 12 disciples as we saw in our text from last Sunday.

But in out text this morning there is a new setting being established. Jesus has moved from the wilderness around the Sea of Galilee back to His home in Capernaum. Look back at your text to verse 20 at what I am calling the setting.

I. The Setting (20).

A. We see here that Jesus had gone back to His home in Capernaum and again a crowd gathered that was so large that Jesus and His Apostles couldn’t even eat.

Being away from Capernaum hadn’t helped at all. Jesus was as popular as ever. Even something like eating a meal couldn’t be carried out because of all the people.

Verse 20 is establishing the setting for the rest of chapter 3. Jesus is at home in Capernaum and the crowd had gathered and included in the crowd were some of the scribes who will make their accusations in verses 22-30. And some of His own family come seek to talk with Him in verses 31-35.

But it is in verse 21 of our text this morning that gives us their motive for coming. They are coming to where Jesus is for an intervention. Look back to your text to verse 21:

II. The Intervention (21).

A. So once the members of Jesus family had heard that He was back at home in Capernaum they sought Him out for the purpose of seizing Him because they were saying that He was “out of His mind.” The language use and linguistic structure of this verse denotes the idea that they didn’t necessarily believe Jesus to be mad in the literal sense but that He was not acting wisely and needed the family to intervene.

It seems logical to conclude that it is not so much that there was a problem with Jesus working His ministry, but the real problem was the conflict that was being created between the religious and governing authorities. So His family probably feared for His safety due to the tension that was being created between Himself and the religious and political leaders.

If this is their motive for coming it would seem that it is appropriate for us to believe that Mary was there and so were His younger brothers as you can see down in verse 31. They probably loved Him and didn’t want to see Him get in trouble with the governing authorities.

By the way, this is a key verse that informs us that Mary had other children. She was not a perpetual virgin like some of our Roman Catholic friends believe.

So the family is putting forth something kind of like an insanity plea in the modern day court system that attempts to convince the court that something is not right regarding someones cognitive ability due to them being misguided in their perception of reality.

But Christian know this: Jesus was not out of His mind in the literal nor in the figurative sense.

III. The Application

A. The problem is due the lack of perception that fallen people can have when it comes to God and His Kingdom manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When we see Jesus working of miracles and declaring things that lead one to believe that He is the preeminent God what we have are cosmic realities clashing with the physical and experiential reality of a fallen world.

Jesus’ family knew that what He was doing in His Kingdom ministry was clashing with the religious and political powers of the day. This was because of the implications of what Jesus was preaching and the demonstrations of His power displays in working miracles and confrontations with demons.

B. Same is true in the current day. If Christ is the exclusive appointed King of God’s Kingdom then that means that all the others are excluded by default. Jesus is greater than all the Kings and presidents of history and on the final day they will all bow down before Him in submission to Him and all His glory.

The gospels declare to us that the exclusive claims made by Jesus Himself inform us concerning His perceived identity of who He was and what He came to do. It was foretold in the Old Testament regarding who Messiah would be and what Messiah would do in reference to the Kingdom of God.

And it can be seen on the pages of Scripture and in how the New Testament reveals Messiah in fulfillment to those Old Testament prophecies regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So if there is OT prophetic proof and there is fulfillment in the life of Jesus; why would someone even think of raising the possibility of Jesus being out of His mind?

Because whenever a sinful world is in conflict with God’s order the tendency of fallen man is to adjust God’s order to fit the preoccupations of a fallen world.

This is preferred because in this fallen world the hostility for the things of God can be clearly seen. We use the world to temper our understanding of God. That is far more comfortable and less conflicting than using God’s order and design to shape our understanding of the world.

So it would be much easier and less conflicting to make the insanity argument as to deescalate the conflict that to deal with the hostility of the conflict in the world of religion and political government.

By the way this is why when communist infiltrate a society and culture they start by going after religions with exclusive truth claims like Christianity.

They understand the difference between the idea of God being the absolute truth giver and the idea of the state being the absolute truth giver. Same is true for religion.

There is nothing conflicting about an idea of a god who is not absolute. A god or belief system that is inclusive of all world religions can exist side by side with other religions as long as they all mutually and absolutely hold to co-existence. You can absolutely hold to inclusivity but you can’t absolutely hold to exclusivity. One harmonizes with the world and the other is in conflict with it.

People prefer to think that to make absolute truth claims regarding Jesus Christ is crazy in this modern day society of syncretism. Ancient Rome was this way too. No one suffered for believing in an inclusive religion of an alternative god. The conflict arose when the early Christians made absolute truth claims and refused to declare Caesar as Lord.

C. Jesus Christ came into the world to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth. And He made exclusive truth claims and demonstrated the power of the Kingdom that set captives free who were under the curse of sin and death in the world. He did this by taking our sin upon Himself and dying for it in our place.

This payment was so utter complete that death no longer had a claim on Him and He rose again from the dead on the third day.

You can see how a mad man might make truth claims and be wrong. And he may even get caught up into a bad situation and be killed for his claims. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead validates everything He ever declared to be true at its core. The Old Testament foretold it and the New Testament has unveiled it.

Conclusion: Do you believe it today by faith alone?

The biggest problem with exclusive truth claims is when the claims count and have implications for all eternity.

This is why even if you don’t believe them you better make sure in absolute fashion why you don’t. Because if they are true the consequences of your denial are eternal and more conflicting than you could ever imagine. Because you may not find yourself in conflict with the world in this temporal world in this life; but in eternity you will find yourself in conflict with a Holy God.

Hear the word of God spoken through the prophet Isaiah from Isaiah 1:18- “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

God holds out the finished work of Christ as the means by which sins like scarlet crimson are washed away and paid for in full so that you can be washed white as snow white wool.

He commands us to believe in the exclusive Christ, His Christ, the second person of the Godhead who is His eternal King over His Kingdom. Believe the gospel unto salvation!

Believer there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved. If you are in Christ you know this already. And it is in Him that you find your rest and your security. Come to Him and confess and receive. Let’s Pray!