I wrote and posted this a while back (December 2019). Only a few people clicked on it then (none since December 22, 2019). I don’t know how many read it from beginning to end. The title is “Here are my mother and my brothers!” It got long, so I imagine people got tired and clicked off, going about other idle ways.
I was called to repeat the meaning, in simpler terms now. There are two core reading that tell this story from slightly different perspectives (I say this as Matthew and Mark offer the same perspective, so they count as one). Matthew (more than Mark) gives details that allows one to see Jesus is inside a synagogue with his disciples and other Jews. Luke adds the important element of Jesus saying, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:21)
In the past I have pointed out that God and the Spiritual is masculine essence. As such, God is the Father. Jesus, as the Christ, is also masculine essence, as the Son of God. I have also said the earth and matter – everything known to human brains, including space and distant galaxies, but more easily understood as being the flesh (dust and clay) of human beings – is feminine essence. An understanding of this principle makes seeing “mother” in terms of being “feminine essence” and “brothers” in terms of “masculine essence” as … well, essential.
There is no denying that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a Saint. She, as a sixteen year old virgin, received the Holy Spirit within her, so Jesus would be conceived of flesh – of feminine essence. Jesus became just like everyone born on earth – past, present, and future – a body of feminine essence. Jesus was then born of the flesh.
That means Jesus was not addressing Mother Mary when he was told, “Your mother and brothers are outside wanting to talk to you.”
We read in Matthew’s Gospel the following: “Pointing to his disciples, [Jesus] said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.” This speaks of the duplicates of Mary the virgin girl. Jesus pointed to the ones (sans Judas Iscariot) who would likewise allow the Holy Spirit to impregnate them (so they would each become a “mother” of the divine) and also be reborn as him (each becoming resurrections of the “Son” of God).
This needs to be understood as Jesus saying to you, today, that you must realize (regardless of your human gender) you are feminine essence, being a body of flesh. The body of flesh has a soul that gives the body of flesh animation – movement, maintenance, thoughts, senses – but the soul is God’s breath of life, which is neuter gender. That neutrality is God’s gift of Free Will. A soul is free to act as the body reacts to the world. Since the world is where sin exists, the body is attracted to that sin, and the life-breath soul goes as the body leads it.
In the case of Jesus, the life-breath (soul) God gave him also came with the masculine essence of the Holy Spirit of God, meaning the influence on a soul by the world of sin became nil. The presence of the Holy Spirit at birth meant Jesus was the Son of Man, which is a statement that he was not another daughter of the flesh (as all human beings are, being born of a woman – feminine essence).
This means that when Jesus said, “Here are my mother and my brothers,” each was a virgin daughter of the flesh who would receive the Holy Spirit of the Father. Each would then be a “mother,” like Mary and be reborn as other Sons of God (the masculine essence of God the Father). That transformation would bring about them becoming the “brothers” of Jesus in a Spiritual sense.
The real mother and brothers of Jesus the Son of Man were outside where Jesus was, which symbolizes they held earthly titles, as “mother and brothers.” However, because Jesus was not within them (“outside” and external) they were not the “mother” and “brothers” to whom Jesus referred (“Pointing to his disciples”).
After Jesus pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers,” he added, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50) This statement is important to grasp.
In all the Gospels (four books) the word “adelphē” (meaning “sister”) is only written seventeen times: three times by Matthew; five times by Mark; three times by Luke; and, six times by John. The majority of those times were in reference to a blood relative: Mary the sister of Martha; Mary the sister of Mary [the wife of Cleopas]; and [in the plural number] the sisters of Jesus. This is the only generic use of the term “sister” and it was stated by Jesus.
When Jesus stated “Here are my mother [in the singular] and my brothers [in the plural],” the order is important. Collectively, “the disciples” were the “mother.” This is then a statement about the rebirth of Jesus coming from a collective, which has the broadest sense of meaning “a church.” Jesus pointed to his disciples as they were in a synagogue, or a place of gathering by God chosen people. Still, Jesus pointed as his disciples, not to the building around them, meaning the continuation of Jesus would be born through Apostles, not buildings. Therefore, the collective (the Church, not a building or institution without life breath or the Holy Spirit) would ALL be “brothers,” BECAUSE all Apostles are the flesh [the temples of the Lord by that point] where Jesus Christ, the SON of God has been resurrected.
When Jesus then followed that by reversing the order and adding “sister,” as “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother,” this means “brothers in Christ” are both male humans (“my brother”) and female humans (“my sister”). By both human sexes being “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven” they will be members in the collective that would evolve into what we now call Christianity. However, because both males and females will then be expected to be “the mother” of the next generations of Jesus reborn in human flesh, as the Christ, ONLY Saints (Apostles) can lay claim to being that “Church.”
The only reason Christianity arose is because ALL who were reborn as CHRIST went out into the world and spread the Good News that others could likewise be reborn as Jesus Christ IF he or she received the Holy Spirit. Membership then meant being “one with Christ,” or “Christian.” That is the truth of being in the name of Jesus Christ. It did not mean all those “outside calling for Jesus to come to them” would be counted in that number. A Christian has become a mother of Jesus divinely; and, for that angel to appear to one [the Holy Spirit], one best be a virgin to worldly sin and have a heart as clean as driven snow.
Amen