Just recently, I spent time with my church team who worked with relief and aid organizations in Henryville, Indiana. The town recently experienced a devastating blast from a tornado.

Unless you've seen such devastation, your mind cannot adequately prepare you for the experience.  You try to make sense of where a home once stood, when all you see is a foundation.  Mixed in with piles of shattered wood, glass, and insulation you find an odd blend of family portraits, clothing, Christmas decoration, and toys.  The recipe was never the same at each location, though eerily similar.

By this point a full week had passed.  People have not had adequate time to process what has happened, but I was struck by the upbeat nature of those within this community.

When you're stripped down to nothing, all you really have left is the people around you.  That was most definitely the display.  More became of just acquaintances, neighbors, and friends.   Suddenly a common experience brought these people together.  Now, they were family.

In Matthew 12:46-50, a group of unrelated individuals stood, sat, leaned, and listened as Christ poured into them.  Jesus has just challenged the establishment, gave an amazing display of his miraculous power, and then warned of the consequence of speaking against the power that enabled him to do such works!

It probably wasn't the gentle-sweet-loving-Jesus moment some might had imagined.  His speech that day was somewhat radical; but radical events were about to take place.  It was a preparation.   It was an induction.   It was consecration.

Jesus was interrupted in that moment.  His mom and brothers were outside waiting on him.  The messenger demanded he come outside.  I can almost sense a pause in this moment.  Jesus looking at the messenger.  The messenger looking back.

Jesus responded with a new definition of what it means to be family.  His mother stood just outside the door.  His own flesh and blood.  The one who gave birth to him.  And yet he says to this man, "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?  You see these people here.  This is my mother. These are my brothers."

Christ came on a mission.  While biological connections are important to us as earthly beings, he was stressing the importance of something even greater.  Eternity.

Our human minds have a difficult time grasping that.

Yes, we often have an obligation to our earthly family.  More importantly our focus should be on eternity, and increasing our family in that capacity.  This life is but a moment, a mist as scripture says in the book of James.  Our commonality as Christians is what make up this beautiful mix of acquaintances, neighbors, and friends, then turns them quite simply into family.

It was a turn of terrible events that brought a community together and created a family last week in that small Indiana town.  It was a small family of Christian strangers who came to their aid.  Christ came to unify that which was not meant to be together.  Our existence on this earth is not in part to separate ourselves from this world, but rather to go out into this world, and with truth, make them a part of our family.

As family, we are eternally linked.