Hearing the words that Jesus taught, a woman in the crowd shouted out that the mother of such a son must surely be blessed. Jesus did not correct her, but he did redirect her to the true source of blessing, namely, the Word of God. Rather than visualizing what a blessing it would be to have been the mother of such a son, Jesus wanted the woman to hear and believe the Word of God that he was teaching. In other words, Jesus told the woman that she didn’t have to be his mother to be blessed, she, and all those present, could experience God’s blessing by hearing and keeping the Word.
Many today tend to focus on secondary details of the gospel. They recognize the goodness of Jesus and the excellence of his words and work. Perhaps they even imagine what it would have been like to be one of his disciples. Yet, they do not believe and receive his Word. If only they would “hear” and “keep” it, then they would become, as the woman in the crowd seemed to desire, Christ’s “brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).