He came home. Again [the] crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. 21 When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Mark brings Jesus back “home,” and the crowd gathers again. The pressure is so constant that “it [is] impossible for them even to eat.” Mark is showing the unrelenting demand around Jesus. The house is not a private refuge. It becomes the place where the public presses in.
This is also Mark’s way of showing momentum. The earlier conflicts did not cool down. The healings, the teaching, and the gathering of disciples have made Jesus a public figure whom people will not leave alone. The house is packed, the day is crowded, and even basic human needs are crowded out. Mark wants the reader to feel how exposed Jesus and his close followers now are.
When word of this reaches Jesus’ relatives, they “set out to seize him.” Mark gives the reason in the form of a report: “for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” A reasonable reading is that they act because this is what people were saying, and they want to manage the public situation before it goes further. In any case, Mark presents their action as driven by that judgment, and they move to restrain him. In doing so, Mark makes it clear that those closest to him are not interpreting what is happening correctly. They see the public intensity, but they read it as something out of control rather than as the mission of God unfolding.
This kind of misunderstanding is not new in the story of God’s servants. The prophets sometimes faced resistance from those nearest to them, even from within their own households (Jer 12:6). Mark is showing that Jesus is beginning to meet organized resistance from multiple directions, and one form of resistance can come through the concern and embarrassment of his relatives and their attempt to manage him. It is a different kind of opposition than the hostility of leaders, but it still misunderstands who Jesus is and what God is doing through him.
Mark immediately places this attempt by the family to restrain Jesus alongside the harsher accusation that follows from the scribes (Mk 3:22-30), and then he will return to the question of who truly belongs to Jesus (Mk 3:31-35). Mark is setting up a contrast: some will try to control Jesus, others will accuse him, and Jesus will respond by clarifying what God’s kingdom is and who belongs to it.
The issue is not that family ties are meaningless. The issue is that closeness by blood does not automatically produce clarity of faith. Mark is showing that the kingdom gathers people around Jesus by response to God’s will, not by proximity, reputation, or attempts to manage him.
Lord Jesus, give me a clear mind and a steady heart to recognize your work, even when it is misunderstood. Teach me to trust the Father’s will and not to judge your ways by human categories.
___________________
Sources and References
- The Holy Bible, New American Bible, Revised Edition (2011).
- The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1990), p. 604, para. 23.
- Faculty of the University of Navarre, The Navarre Bible: Mark, p. 173.
- José Enrique Aguilar Chiu et al., eds., The Paulist Biblical Commentary (2018), pp. 985-986.
- The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, 3rd fully revised ed. (2020), p. 1250.
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