We live in an age the devil must love. For ‘devil’, and likewise ‘Satan’, means ‘deceiver, one who confuses’, so this age of AI-generated lies, fake news (and people crying ‘Fake News!’ about real news), dissembling, finger-pointing, and distracting, is right up their alley. (This is true whether we take the devil as a literal personal being or as a spiritual force.) I think this characterization of the devil is helpful to remember as we look at today’s Gospel reading, where they are a big topic of conversation.
In the narrative of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been attracting huge crowds. After taking a much needed break, he now returns, and the crowds do too:
The crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain Jesus, 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 he 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, that house will not be able to 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. (Mark 3.20-27)
It’s a chaotic scene. The crowds are pushing against him, his family is trying to remove him from the situation, and the religious authorities show up and hurl accusations at him. The specific accusation is that he is able to cast out demons because he has the power of the devil within him. Jesus replies with a famous retort: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” He then goes into a short parable, the details of which are confusing, but the main point of which is clear: If you want to get people out from the devil’s control, you need to take the devil out of commission first. This is why, from a Christian perspective, it’s impossible to fight evil with evil, violence with violence, lies with lies. Fighting Satan with Satan only serves to strengthen Satan.
If we zoom out a bit, where do we see ‘Satan’ — deception, distraction, denial, accusation, confusion — at work in this story? Let’s remember the incident of all the chaos, which is found back in verses 10-11: “He had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” He is healing many, of both physical and spiritual afflictions. This is an undeniably good and holy thing, and yet we have cynics calling Jesus crazy, the authorities saying he’s demonic, and his family just trying to get him out of there. The cynics deny, the authorities accuse, his family tries to distract him from his mission. All of these — even in this case love — are Satan at work in the story.
René Girard added an interest spin to the story that explains why Satan might be seen to be all over this story. He sees the scapegoat mechanism responsible for Jesus’ death (and so many other human atrocities big and small) as being the normal course of human ‘justice’: Something happens to throw a community into confusion and dissent, and the community tries to deal with it by piling up lies and accusations against one individual or group. In other words, using dissent to try to end dissent, Satan casting out Satan, a kingdom divided against itself.
With all this in mind, the meaning of Jesus’ next words becomes heightened:
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” – for they had said, “He has 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, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he 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 God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3.28-35)
The Holy Spirit was clearly at work in what Jesus was doing. He was healing people, freeing them from some of the bonds which kept them from flourishing, which is what the Spirit does! (”The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed” (Luke 4.18).) Yet so many people could not see this and tried to stop it, and even called it evil — blasphemy indeed. We saw the exact same thing last week, with the Pharisees who were more focused on their narrow understanding of Sabbath-keeping than on the healing Jesus brought.
As an aside, whenever you see the word ‘eternal’ in the New Testament, it’s a good signal to stop and think. Because the word didn’t mean to first-century Jews what it means to us today. The underlying Greek word is aionion, which means ‘of the ages’. When used in Jewish texts before and around the time of Jesus, it carried not a sense of “belonging to all ages,” hence ‘eternal,’ but “belonging to the Age to Come”. What I think Jesus is saying here is not that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a sin that lasts forever and cannot be undone, but that it is unforgivable because it is a rejection of the forgiveness that is the hallmark of God’s Kingdom.
The passage ends with Jesus seemingly pushing aside his family for his disciples. ‘Who are my kin?’ he asks. ‘My kin are those who see the Kingdom of God and the Spirit in what I’m doing. My kin are those who walk with me and follow me in putting God’s will first, even when it’s risky.’
So then, this reading is a sharp warning. We do have to be on the watch for the devil — the forces of deception and confusion and doubt that are all around us — and let nothing keep us from seeing where God is at work. (As last week’s Gospel reminded us, even our beliefs about God can be a barrier to seeing God at work!) Say no to lies, to division, to finger-pointing, to baseless accusations, to distraction. Say yes to peacemaking, to justice, to healing. For that is where the Holy Spirit is at work.
Matthew Root 