A New Family

In Mark 3:32–35, Jesus promised that a new family made up of his followers would be a hundred times better than any existing family. He promised Peter that he would receive a “hundredfold” increase in “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands” (Mark 10:29–30). He wasn’t making a promise about affluence, not worldly affluence, at least. He was making a promise about love and care and protection. 

That is the power of Christian community, and it’s available now. Anyone and everyone get to be a part of it now—if we want it. Jesus promised this one-hundred-times increase both “in the age to come” and “now in this time” (Mark 10:29–30). 

Prior to this, Jesus was the highest concentration of God’s presence on earth. But now you are, my friend. I am too. That was Lieutenant Cummings’s secret. God is God, and we are not, of course. But his power and brilliance and love dwell within us, within these earthen vessels. And so, what Cummings knew was that God comes to each of us through our friends. Here again are the chaplain’s words as they echoed off the steel walls of that dark and dank Japanese prison ship: “Believe in yourselves and in the goodness of one another. Know that in yourselves and in those that stand near you, you see the image of God.”

Cummings didn’t actually die in the darkness; he died in the light. He died right next to his Father. Beside his King. In the midst of that brutal war and the blackness of that prison hold, he remained in God’s marvelous light the entire time because he was with his beloved brothers right to the end.

Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. He will never let you down. Sometimes it may seem like he does. But he doesn’t. Ever. If it ever appears as though he’s let you down, it’s simply because you and I can’t see things from his perspective. He is always there for us, interested and caring and engaged. And through this family, this army, he has time for everyone. The Spirit of God is no longer contained in just one man. He dwells inside a multitude of men and women. “Behold,” Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). He’s everywhere, able to help anyone and everyone who wants it.

We can, therefore, breathe a sigh of relief and finally accept Jesus’ commands: “Fear not”; “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on”; “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matt. 10:31; 6:25; 6:34). We don’t need to fear anything, because we are full members in good standing in his transcendentally fearsome surrogate family. And this family has got our backs.

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