Mark 3:31 — Community Reflections

MARK 3:31 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.”

Then Jesus's mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him — the family's arrival, foreshadowed in verse 21, now occurs. They are standing outside — they cannot get through the crowd — and they send a message in to Jesus. The outside/inside spatial distinction sets up Jesus' redefinition of family: the physical family stands outside while the spiritual family (those doing God's will) sits inside around Jesus. The mother and brothers are not presented unsympathetically; their concern is genuine. But the encounter creates the occasion for one of the most radical sayings in the Synoptic tradition about the nature of the kingdom's community.

Church Fathers on Mark 3:31

Because the relations of the Lord had come to seize upon Him, as if beside Himself, His mother, urged by the sympathy of her love, came to Him.
Theophylact · 11th century

The brother of the Lord must not be thought to be the sons of the ever-virgin Mary, as Helvidius says [ed. note: The perpetual virginity of the Mother of God is reckoned by White, Bramhall, Patrick and Pearson, amongst the traditions which have ever been held in the Catholic Church. For an account of the heretics who denied it, see Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art, 3, p. 272, note x., also Catena Aurea in Matt., p 58, note c], nor the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, as some…
Bede · 8th century

But let us be assured that we are His brethren and His sisters, if we do the will of the Father; that we may be joint-heirs with Him, for He discerns us not by sex but by our deeds.
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 5 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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