This Satan Business

Mark 3: 19b – 30
26 June 2011

After a three week break, it is time for us to return to Galilee. When we left there last time, Jesus had just selected his close associates, the ones who would be responsible to spread the word of the Good News after Jesus was to leave, the apostles.

We rejoin him today, in a house, and as usual, there is a capacity crowd.
“Then Jesus went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And Jesus called them to him, and spoke to them in parables. ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

‘Truly, I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but who ever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – for they said, ‘He had an unclean spirit.’
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘You mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.’ And Jesus replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of the God is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3: 19b- 34).’”

There is a lot of substance in this story. However, I think that there is a thread that holds it all together and that is how I’m going to approach this event. Because there is so much involved here, I will pursue the theme next week also. The thread in this story is really a question. Who is Jesus to you? That is the question Mark asks to the crowd, to Jesus’ family and to the scribes. And indirectly, he asks us, the hearer of this gospel, what our thoughts are.
There is no doubt that Jesus never left people indifferent. We have a proof of that in this passage. And still today, Jesus does not leave people indifferent. That, I think, is because he continues to ask, ‘Who do you think I am?”

Let's see how the players in this event thought of Jesus. The crowd that was in the house was, by all account, neither for nor against Jesus. The crowd was simply interested. People wanted to hear Jesus. They wanted to be healed. They wanted their demons to be cast out. They wanted to be near him to see what was going on. It would seem that for the most part, the crowd had not committed itself one way of another. For most people in the house Jesus was a powerful man who had some amazing abilities and had very interesting and authoritative things to say. They simply were attracted to Jesus. But at least, they were inside the house.

Jesus’ family, for their part, were on the outside. We'll see this more in detail next week. For Jesus mother and brother, Jesus was a person who had something seriously wrong with him. He no longer was looking after himself – unable to eat, unable to find peace, unable even to be alone. They had to grab him and restrain him in order to protect him from himself and quick. I will say more about Jesus’ family next week.

For the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, the capital and the seat of the Jewish religion, Jesus was a possessed man – possessed not by a low ranking demon but the master of the house himself, Beelzebub, also known as Satan. As they watched Jesus casting out demons out of people, people they understood to be deserving of the punishment they received, they simply could not comprehend that God would do such a thing. If anything, Jesus' powers were from the devil himself to confuse people and lead them astray. As far as they were concerned, Jesus was a wolf pretending to be a sheep. He was the devil disguising himself as a shepherd. The scribes could not have that happening on their watch. Jesus was nothing more than a charlatan who should be stopped.

This thought that Jesus was understood to be Beelzebul in person got Him hot under the collar. He called the scribes in so they could hear and see what He had to say. Looking them in the eye, I’m sure, He told them three quick lessons.

First, He said that if He were Satan, then the evil kingdom was falling apart. A kingdom that is fighting itself is nothing less than a civil war. And a civil war destroys a nation, if not completely, it greatly weakens it. The Scribes could certainly remember from their history what happened to Israel at the end of Solomon’s reign. There was a civil war when different faction tried to seize power. The result was the division of Israel in two: the southern kingdom, called Judah, and the northern kingdom called Israel. And the two even fought wars years later. Would Satan willingly and purposefully do this to himself?

The second point Jesus made was that if a house was divided, then how could it stand? Here Jesus is not speaking about a physical house but about a dynasty. He is referring to a prominent or a royal family. He remarks that if a dynasty is fighting among itself that it will weaken that family, perhaps even to the point of collapse. The scribes would most likely remember that this is what happened to the high priesthood less than one hundred years before when two brothers fought for the position. The result was the invasion of Jerusalem by the Romans to bring back order and peace. Was there internal fighting in Satan’s family? Is this what the scribes were insinuating? Of course it wasn’t. The scribes certainly would not argue that one. So what was happening to the demonic realm then?

This is exactly what the third point was about. If Satan was not fighting himself, if the evil was being fought off, then the fighting came from outside. There was someone who was stronger that was having the upper hand. Although the English does not reflect this, expert think that the name Beelzebul means the lord of the house. Thus Satan is the lord of the house. This explains why Jesus talks about a house in His third point. He is saying that someone is stronger than the lord of the house. And that someone can only be one person: God. He is the only one who can tie up Satan and get rid of the demons possessing people.

Then Jesus makes this formidable statement: “Truly, I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but who ever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.’

What Jesus is saying is very important. All manner of sins, all manners of blasphemies can be forgiven, except for one. Only one sin can never be forgiven and that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. From what I have read, sins can be interpreted as doing wrong towards others. A sin, in this context, is breaking a relationship, a trust with another person. Blasphemy is something done against God. It is going against His will, His guidance. It is the breach of our relationship with Him. It is not uttering or saying a bad word or using God’s name in vain – although this certainly would hurt God’s feelings for sure. Blasphemy is more than that. It is our actions, our thoughts, our decisions which go against what we know God would want for and from us.

All of these things are forgivable Jesus says. They all are, that is, except for one. And that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

What on earth is that, you may wonder. Does this mean that when I swear using God’s name – or Jesus’ name, I am an eternally condemned person? Does this mean if I wilfully do something that I know God does not agree with that I am doomed?
Mark gives us a clue as to what Jesus meant by His words. “‘Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – for they said, ‘He had an unclean spirit.’” Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is to deny that Jesus could possibly be God as He claimed to be.

“To suggest that Jesus’ authority over demons comes from the prince of all evil spirits is to deny the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. This is eternal sin. When the presence of the Spirit of God in Jesus is denied, how can God forgive? It is unforgivable to claim that the Holy Spirit of God is an unclean spirit because those making such a claim place themselves outside the domain of the all-forgiving God. They manifest an attitude of mind so fixed and obstinate that it forms a permanent obstacle between God and man (Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of Mark p. 83).”

To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to deny God and His presence in the world and in Jesus. It is very serious. And that is the accusation Jesus is making toward the scribes. They were denying that Jesus was who He said He was. They were stating that what He was doing was through the power of Satan. They were saying that Jesus was evil.

Is this true that Jesus was evil? Is it true that Jesus was insane? These are the question that Mark is asking. Mark proclaims that Jesus is the son of God, inhabited by the Sprit of God, able to do miracles and having all the authority that belongs to God himself. Mark proclaims that Jesus is the stronger one, that He can, by His presence and will, eliminate evil and darkness. No one else can eradicate evil the way Jesus does. No one can because only God himself can triumph over evil.
Mark wants to know: Do you believe this to be true? He does – and I do too. What do you make of Jesus?