God’s Word for You
Mark 6:3-4 Jesus’ brothers and sisters
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, December 4, 2022
3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t he Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”
We saw how the synagogue first reacted to Jesus’ preaching. They were amazed at his learning and wisdom. Now they betray the opinion of so many people, that a man “from here” could never amount to anything.
The fifth reaction was that Jesus had been a carpenter. Like Mary’s husband Joseph, Jesus had made a living doing carpentry when he was a younger man, building and repairing things for the people of the city. Many people do great service to their communities by working hard and often thankless jobs. The men who break their backs working in sewers, making and mending roads, working on the high steel in our cities, mechanics, miners, fishermen, merchant sailors, herdsmen, mill workers, truck drivers, bus drivers, roofers, painters, electricians, plumbers, farmers, and hundreds of other tasks that are not glorious but necessary. Jesus had worked one of these jobs. We could pause to make a comparison of the “building and mending” side of carpentry, the inevitable splinters and wounds a carpenter receives, with the building and mending he did as our Savior, receiving the unavoidable wounds of the passion and crucifixion, but the Scriptures don’t make such a comparison. We can notice this, but we shouldn’t base what we say on our own observations and analogies rather than what the Scriptures themselves say. The point here is that the Nazarenes didn’t think a blue-collar guy like Mary’s son could become a rabbi.
The sixth reaction is about his family: His mother, his brothers and his sisters were all known to them. No one had anything bad to say about Mary. Evidently a widow by this time (the Bible does not say what happened to Joseph her husband, last heard from twenty years before when Jesus was twelve, Luke 2:42-52), her reputation in the city was an honorable one. She had raised her sons and daughters who were now beginning to marry and begin families of their own.
The names of the brothers are given here as they were in Matthew 13:55: James (perhaps second oldest after Jesus), Joseph (named for his father), Simon (a common name among Israelites), and Judas, also known to us as Jude. Before Jesus was crucified, these brothers doubted him as much as the rest of the Nazarenes, “for even his own brothers did not believe in him” (John 7:5). Later on, at least two of them became believers and leaders in the church. James, who was not a disciple, became the pastor of the church in Jerusalem and wrote the letter of James in the New Testament. Jude also wrote a short New Testament letter.
The sisters were also known to the people of Nazareth. They would have been younger, still in their teens or twenties, but it was likely that they were married by this time, which would account for the different way that they are referred to: “Here with us” can be easily understood as “married to (some of) us.”
Were these the physical brothers and sisters of Jesus, the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph, just as he was the physical son of Mary yet conceived by the Holy Spirit and the Son of God the Father? The question is not really a useful one, because the authors of the Bible do not go out of their way to make the point beyond the normal use of the words “brothers” and “sisters.” Mary is not depicted in the Bible as a virgin following the birth of Jesus, and there is no reason to think that she and Joseph underwent some kind of celibate “marriage” and raised seven or more children together. Scripture honors marriage and commands us to do the same: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4). Mary is blessed forever as the mother of God (Luke 1:30-35,41-49), and that is excellent. But the Bible nowhere gives her any other honor. Those who appeal to Christians to give her special reverence and to make her the object of prayer go beyond the words of the Bible, for Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).
Returning to the five reactions of the Nazarenes to Jesus’ preaching, their objections produced two answers from Jesus. The first was his judgment of their faith: They did not receive him. He was without honor. Another reaction will come in the verse that follows.
So here we learn two important points, extremes surrounding Jesus our Lord that we should avoid. First we must not give him scant praise, or worse (as the Nazarenes did), no praise at all. They rejected him because they did not think he was worthy of their praise.
Second, we must not give our praise and adoration to another (as some do today by their worship and reverence for Mary). Just as the Israelites turned away from God at Mount Sinai and in their impatience produced the golden calf, we must take care to give our love and adoration to God our Lord alone. Even after he brought them away from Sinai, God warned: “When they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me” (Deuteronomy 31:20). Prayer to anyone apart from God alone is idolatry, a sin against the First Commandment, and God commands us to fear, love and trust in him above all things. “I do not trust in my bow or my sword,” says the Psalm, “but you give us victory. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever” (Psalm 44:6-8).
It is not easy to do this. Our Confession says: “What more could you ask or desire than God’s gracious promise that he will be yours with every blessing and will protect and help you in every need? The trouble is that the world does not believe this at all, and does not recognize [the First Commandment] as God’s Word. For the world sees that those who trust in God and not mammon suffer grief and want and are opposed and attacked by the devil. They have neither money, prestige, nor honor, and can scarcely even keep alive; meanwhile, those who serve mammon have power, prestige, honor, wealth, and every comfort in the eyes of the world. Accordingly, we must grasp these words, even in the face of this apparent contradiction, and learn that they neither lie nor deceive but will yet prove to be true.” (Martin Luther, Large Catechism)
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.