Jesus experienced conflict in his family. In today's text we hear that his family was so upset by what they saw he was doing and heard he was saying, that they decided to "take charge of him" because they thought "he was out of his mind" (Mark 3:21). Later in our story we hear that Jesus' family arrived while he was debating with the religious leaders about Satan, the prince of demons. Someone told him that his mother and brothers were there. Jesus responded, "My true family members are those who do the will of God." There was tension in the air, not only because of the hot debate with religious leaders, but because of conflict with family members. Jesus knew the agony of family life. There is agony in every family. There is also the possibility of joy which helps us face the conflicts of life.

Jesus' family knew that joy at his birth. "Joy To The World" we sing each Christmas. It was not only the world which experienced that joy, but the holy family -- Mary and Joseph and their baby. A baby often brings joy, even ecstasy, to a family.

James Nestingen, a theologian at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, in a Bible lecture at the Pacifica Synod Convention in May of 1997, lifted high the importance of family joys and family values in our time. "How do you overcome the sorrowful world and sinful values of society?" he asked, and then answered his own question by saying, "Tell family stories and Bible stories over and over again." Good advice! Then he made a point I had never thought of before. "Don't be surprised when conflict arises even in the best family. Remember the Bible story of the fall. The family too is under the curse of the fall as described in Genesis 3."

That is the beginning point of the Bible story of Mark 3:20-35 -- conflict and agony in the physical family.

Agony In The Physical Family Because Of Sin

Jesus had conflict with his physical family. Some family members came and tried to take charge of him, because they thought he was crazy. They thought he had gone "over the edge" and had become a religious fanatic. They thought he was crazy because of what he was doing -- preaching about the kingdom of God, healing, and debating with powerful officials. You can feel the agony of the conflict as you hear the story of how family members decided among themselves to "put him away quietly" before he did any more damage to himself and them. In the family conflict there was misunderstanding, miscommunication, and misjudgment -- classic symptoms of agony in all families. Conflict arose because it appeared to Jesus' family that he had thrown away security, safety, and society's values.

Jesus' family thought he had thrown away security. Jesus had left home and the carpentry business his father Joseph had set up in Nazareth. Jesus' departure had directly affected the financial security of his family. He was the oldest son of a dead father. In Jewish culture, as the oldest son, Jesus was responsible for the security of the whole family. Jesus had become an itinerant preacher, which had no security for him or for his family. There must have been a lot of gossip in Nazareth when that happened. The family was embarrassed by what appeared to be an act of an irresponsible man. They were concerned about the security issue. They were also concerned about the safety issue.

Jesus' family thought he had thrown away safety. Most people in most cultures play it safe. It was no different with Jesus' family. Jesus was on a head-on collision course with the orthodox religious leaders of his day. Potential conflict with them meant conflict in the family. No sensible man would deliberately agitate the powers that were in place. The family thought that Jesus could not win in a battle with the priests, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The conflict with the religious leaders rose to fever pitch when the religious leaders accused Jesus of being "possessed by Beelzebub," saying, "He is driving out demons by the prince of demons" (Mark 3:22). Jesus' family and friends thought he was "beside himself" (Mark 3:21, RSV). The family was concerned about the safety issue for Jesus and for themselves. They were also concerned about Jesus' teaching which challenged the values of his society.

Jesus' family thought he had thrown away the societal issue. Jesus flew right in the face of society's values when he emphasized the values of the kingdom of God. He had formed his own little society and expected them to change the world. Jesus was taking risks with this new teaching. These risks would have implications for his family too. "He must be crazy," the family members whispered. "We had better rescue him before he does any more damage."

According to Mark 3:20-21, Jesus' own family thought he was out of his mind. According to Luke 4:16-30, the conflict went from bad to worse when he went to Nazareth.

He (Jesus) went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked. Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' " "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed -- only Naaman the Syrian."

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. -- Luke 4:16-30

Were family members there when Jesus preached and got thrown out of the synagogue in Nazareth? Very likely. Did they participate in trying to throw him over the cliff? Quite possibly. The family conflict went from bad to worse. The conflict reached fever pitch.

If Jesus had conflict and enmity in his family, we should not expect to escape the agony of the physical family. There are misunderstandings and conflicts in every family I know. There is pain and sorrow, suffering and death. Some family members judge others and even hate their own flesh and blood. There is hardship and there is hurt in all families.

I recently heard the story of a woman who had suffered torture in a Dachau Nazi prison camp, but had lived to tell her story. Her suffering was excruciating, but she survived it. She married an American military man and settled down to a happy life. Finally she experienced some joy in life through her husband and a child that was born. She also experienced pain like she had never known before. When her husband of 24 years divorced her, the woman said that she suffered more pain than she had ever suffered as a prisoner. The family is a place where great joy can come, but when sin enters in, the family can be a place of great agony too. Estrangement between spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and other family members can cause so many painful problems that we wonder how we can go on.

Some people try to deal with painful family problems by conflict avoidance. Of course this doesn't work. When problems are stuffed inside a person, they come out in other ways, like blaming others, which is called projection. Every family knows how it feels when blame is misplaced.

What we would like to experience when tension comes to the family is conflict resolution where all parties experience joy again because of true repentance and genuine forgiveness. Because of sin, conflict resolution does not always come. In some cases, the best we can hope for is conflict management.

Conflict management comes when one or more family members repent or forgive but others do not let go of the past. In this setting the only option is to face the fact that we cannot change other people, only ourselves. In this setting all we can do is change our attitude, and be sure that we do not get dragged down by the tension caused by the sins of others who are fleeing or fighting.

Conflict resolution does not come from avoidance or fleeing. When we flee, we take our problems with us. How about fighting? When we fight, sometimes issues get resolved, but much more often conflicts heighten and misunderstandings multiply. Isn't there another way to deal with family conflicts? Yes, there is! It is called facing. Facing means putting your cards on the table, getting the issue out where it can be seen by all.

That is what Jesus did when he said that the family of God is more important than the physical family. Jesus said, "Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 6:35). In other words, the faith family is higher than the physical family. It is only in the faith family that we can face one another and experience conflict resolution or management through forgiveness of sin. The forgiveness factor helps us face the power of evil in human relationships and overcome misunderstandings, miscommunication, and misreading of motives.

There was a power of evil at work in Jesus' family. That conflict is experienced in our families too. There is agony in the physical family. But there is the possibility of ecstasy there too. "God set the solitary in families" (Psalm 68:6) because the family can bring great joy as well as great agony, especially when family members become a family of faith.

Ecstasy In The Faith Family Through Forgiveness

Jesus was talking to a crowd one day about the battle between good and evil, between God and Satan. When his family arrived, they had been unsuccessful in "taking charge of him" (Mark 3:20-21). Now they at least wanted to have a family conversation about what he was doing. We pick up the story in Mark 3:31.

Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." -- Mark 3:31-35

Jesus brought potential resolution to the confrontation with his brothers and sisters by redefining the family. "My family members are those who do God's will," he said. To discover what Jesus meant by God's will, we have to look at another difficult verse in our story which at first seems to confuse the situation even more. We pick up the story in verse 29 with Jesus saying: "... Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin" (Mark 3:29).

What is this unforgivable sin? If we lie, but repent, we can be forgiven. If we dishonor one another, but repent, we can be forgiven. If we hurt one another, but repent, we can be forgiven. If we hurt God, but repent, we can be forgiven. What is this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? What is the unforgivable sin? To discover the meaning of this difficult verse, let us look at the nature and job description of the Holy Spirit.

The job of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to repentance and reconciliation. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to the point where we are willing to forgive and be forgiven. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit means to stubbornly cling to our own opinions with an unwillingness to forgive and be forgiven. This hard-heartedness had set like concrete in the hearts of the Pharisees in our story who never repented. That's why resolution never came to the conflict with the religious leaders.

The unforgivable sin is not to repent. God's will is that we repent and be forgiven. That attitude of repentance is what constitutes the faith family and brings ecstasy and reconciliation to family members.

Reconciliation came to Jesus' family members at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. We don't know how it happened. We only know that it happened.

We pick up the story in Acts 1:12. The disciples had seen Jesus crucified, resurrected, and ascended.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. -- Acts 1:12-14

Mary and Jesus' brothers were there with the believers in earnest prayer. Somehow, they had seen the light and had become followers of the Way. Through forgiveness they had joined the faith family. Later we are told that James, Jesus' brother, became the head of the church at the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:13). James had gone a long way from wanting to put Jesus away to heading up the church.

Like Peter who had refused to acknowledge that he even knew Jesus, but later repented and like the apostles who had fled for their own lives, but had seen the error of their ways and repented, James turned back to God. Jesus' family knew the joy of forgiveness through the power of the resurrected Lord. So did Harold's family.

Harold was a recovering alcoholic. Some years ago, he told me that much of the conflict with his wife and children came because he refused to take responsibility for his own life. When he was drinking, he always found fault with family members, friends, and business associates. "I was a faultfinder," he said. "That always led to conflict and agony, but once I faced my problems and started accepting responsibility for my own life everything changed. I found relief through the power of Alcoholics Anonymous. I found real forgiveness and joy through Jesus Christ."

Repentance through Jesus Christ brings conflict resolution to those who are in the faith family. To offer forgiveness even to those who do not repent is the will of the Lord. Forgiveness is the way to follow Jesus' example. That is the will of God spoken of in our story. That is what brings ecstasy to families today.

Ecstasy is defined in the dictionary as: "a state of emotional exaltation; rapture; being highly delighted." This ecstasy and exaltation come in the faith family through forgiveness. This ecstasy means loving God back since he first loved us, and forgiving others as God has forgiven us.

The Bible puts it this way: "Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy" (1 Peter 1:8, RSV).

Ecstasy is the unutterable and exalted joy of the sinner who repents and is forgiven in the family of faith.