Mary’s Lent Diary (Day 29)

A sword is piercing my heart now…I have had a terrible day.  Jesus has been so busy recently, I have hardly seen him at all.  Crowds follow him everywhere he goes.  Today I heard that people were surrounding him so much that, even in a house, he was unable to eat!  Something inside me snapped.  This is just too much – Jesus is still ‘my baby’ and I hate to think of him exhausting himself like this.  I mentioned it to some of the rest of the family and they agreed.  So we went to the house where Jesus was not eating…when we got there, surprise surprise, we could not get into the house.  There were people everywhere. So we thought that the best thing to do was to ask someone to go and tell Jesus that we were there and were looking for him. (Now that I think about it, a lot of my life has been spent looking for Jesus.)

Finally, we saw the man who had gone to get Jesus.  He was pushing his way towards us through the crowd – and he was alone.  Where was Jesus?

The man seemed reluctant to tell us exactly what had been said but I insisted – and then almost wished that I hadn’t.  Jesus had said, ‘Who are my mother and brothers?’

Now, that hurt.  Was he rejecting us?

Apparently, he had gone on to say that whoever does God’s will is his mother and brother and sister.

I did not stick around.  Tears were blurring my vision and I had to get away from there.  Was Jesus rejecting us?  Rejecting me?

A crowd of people

Mary was frustrated by others, and the way in which they were crowding around Jesus.

Perhaps she didn’t like the way they were responding to Him, and putting demands on Him, and mobbing Him.

As a mother, that’s probably understandable.

As a fellow-follower of Jesus? Maybe less so.

As Christians, we will inevitably find people who share our faith doing things differently from us.

People who don’t agree with the way we do things.

People whose following of God looks different from our own.

In blessing them, Jesus is not rejecting us.

In loving them, Jesus is not loving us less.

Sometimes, we don’t understand what God is doing.

When situations happen in our families, in our world, in our churches, we wonder what’s going on.

Where is Jesus?

Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”

Matthew 12

Where is Jesus? 

Jesus is pointing to us, His disciples, saying ‘that’s my family ’.

Remember that the disciples were a disparate bunch.

The saying goes: You can’t choose your family.

The disciples probably wouldn’t have chosen each other.

Yet Jesus did.

God can choose His family.

And He chose you.

With pleasure.

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Ephesians 1:5

He also chose other people, with pleasure.

How might frustrating interactions with our fellow disciples be affected if we remind ourselves of the following?

“God chose us both to be in His family. It gave God pleasure to choose this person as my family member.”

Jesus said: “I am the vine; you are the branches.”

John 15:5

To ‘branch out’ means to do things differently.

There is a lot of anger, and hate, and disunity in the world.

As we branch out as followers of Jesus, living His way, may people in the world see that - because of Him - we are different.

May we, His family - disparate bunch though we may be - be marked by Love .

Jesus said: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34, 35

How could you love a Family Member today?

Will you?

Lord Jesus,

Sometimes other people do frustrate me.

I probably frustrate them, too.

Help us, with and despite all our differences, to unite in following You.

May love be our logo.

And may it encourage others to join in.

Amen

Mary’s Memo Welcome Jesus’ Family

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