No doubt S. Mary herself was anxious.  She must always have been anxious as to what would be the next step in the development of her mysterious Child.  And while there was one side of her relation to Jesus which would always have run out into mystery, the mystery of the as yet unrevealed will of God; on the other side she was no doubt a very real normal human mother, with all a mother’s anxiety and need of constant intervention in the life of her Child.  I do not suppose that S. Mary, any more than any other mother, ever understood that her Son had grown up and could be trusted to conduct the ordinary affairs of the day without her help.  She was no doubt as much concerned as any mother with the fact that His feet might be wet, or that He might not have had any lunch, or that he might have got run over by a passing chariot, or have been taken mysteriously ill.  It was, we may think, this mother-attitude which brought her along with the brethren to give some advice as to how to carry on the preaching mission and avoid getting into trouble with the religious authorities.  “One said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.  But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?  And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and my sister, and my brother.”

Our Lord had a way of turning the passing incidents of the moment to account in His preaching, making them the texts of moral and spiritual teaching.  One gathers that more than one of the parables and parabolic sayings was suggested by something that was before the eyes of His hearers.  He was quick to seize any spoken word, any question, any exclamation, and to turn it to immediate account.  It was so now.  The report that His mother and His brethren were seeking Him, He made the occasion of a statement of vast import.  When we try to think it out, it was not in the least, as it has been perversely understood, an impatient rebuff of an untimely interference, an indication that He did not care for their intervention in a work that they did not understand.  There is really nothing of all that, but a seizing of a passing incident as the medium of an universal truth.  It is the skill of one who knows that the human attention is caught by a matter, however trifling, which is vividly present.  The scene is sharply defined for us:  our Lord interrupted in His talk; the report of the mother and the brethren seeking Him; the obvious interest of the people as to how He will take their intervention; and then the rapid seizing of this interest to make His declaration:  “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and my sister, and my brother.”