Although we are mainly concerned in our meditations with the personal history of Mary, it is not altogether possible to pass over the profitable instruction of this incident. As to Mary herself, the lesson is very much the same as that given to her at Cana of Galilee. Engaged as the Lord was in doing the will of God in His blessed service, He could not allow an interruption even from His mother according to the flesh. In His devotedness to His Father’s “business,” He had nothing to do with her. (See John 2:44Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. (John 2:4).) And herein we are permitted to see Him as the true and perfect Levite. When Moses, before his departure, blessed the tribes of Israel, he said of Levi: “Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: but they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant” (Deut. 33:99Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. (Deuteronomy 33:9); see also Psa. 69:88I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. (Psalm 69:8)). How blessedly is all this exemplified in Christ in the scene under our consideration! He was for God wholly and entirely, and thus outside of all the claims of natural relationship. He was indeed the leader of His people in every path in which He calls upon them to walk. (See 1 John 2:66He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. (1 John 2:6).) In like manner He fulfilled God’s thought of the Nazarite, inasmuch as in all the days of His separation He was holy unto Jehovah, for while His Nazariteship is maintained now in another way, and in another condition, for in that He liveth, He liveth unto God, He was absolutely for God in all His earthly pathway.
But there was, as indeed already mentioned, another significance. The close of Matthew 11 shows that He had now been rejected, and that God’s elect had set aside the nation which would not receive their Messiah. If the blessings of grace were now hid from the wise and prudent, God had revealed “these things” unto babes, and Jesus could praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for the exercise of His sovereignty according to His eternal counsels. Henceforward therefore, as it was now revealed, “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” When the Lord thus said, in reply to one who told Him that His mother and His brethren wished to speak with Him, Who is My mother, and who are My brethren? it was the declaration that His natural ties with the Jewish people were no longer owned. Hence it is, as we may expect, that we find Him in the next chapter, going forth as a sower to produce fruit, for He had indeed come to seek fruit, and He had found none.