A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on June 6, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Mark 3:20-35. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to St. Mark, the third chapter:
Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said 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 is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean Spirit.” And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This passage contains the question I most often have gotten from youth groups. I don't hear it as much from adults anymore, but I hear it a lot from the youth. Hopefully that means that you adults have been well catechized, but just in case, we'll cover it again. What is the unforgivable sin? Have I committed the unforgivable sin? It's a question that can sit in the minds of many, many who get confused about their salvation; they wonder if Jesus’ sacrifice truly is for them. But the unforgivable sin is a very simple thing and it is something we often just overlook by getting too complicated This sin isn't theft or adultery. It's not murder or hatred. It's not lust or anything like this. The unforgivable sin is actually a sin against what Jesus calls the greatest commandment-to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Jesus calls this unforgivable sin the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
What does this mean? We must first ask the question, what is it that the Holy Spirit does? Because if we are to blaspheme him, we are blaspheming God, and, well, it might be good for us to know what this means. The Holy Spirit, we typically ascribed to him the contents of the third article of the creed, right? I believe in the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. And, if you were paying attention, you would find, right at the center of the article, the forgiveness of sins. Our Lord, the Holy Spirit tells us that he has come to forgive us our sins. He does this through the blood of Jesus. Of course, we know that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was good and it is the thing that forgives our sins. It is the action that reconciles us to the Father, but the Holy Spirit delivers to you the forgiveness of sins. He is the one who brings it to you, not just on the day of your baptism, but constantly bringing to you the forgiveness of sin every time you repent. The Holy Spirit will deliver to you the forgiveness won for you from the cross. And so it is that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is to reject that thing that our Lord has won, to reject his forgiveness, to reject your entrance into the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom, to which you belong.
And there are some who reject the Holy Spirit, reject Jesus Christ, reject the Father. We just had last week the celebration of the Holy Trinity. And we studied what it was to believe in the Trinity. And it is this: to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. They have all worked in you to provide for you your salvation, the Father sending the Son, the Son dying for you and sending the Spirit, the Spirit then delivering to you that which the Son has won. In this, we find we can reject this Spirit by rejecting any one of the persons of the Trinity, and, in doing so, we reject the forgiveness of sins that was won, we reject eternal life. We reject the resurrection of the dead. In reality, even if you should reject it, Christ still died for all people, and to reject Him is to condemn yourself.
He died for all people, even unbelievers, but they will not receive him. So the one who will not believe will not receive. The one who does not knock, he shall not be answered. The forgiveness of sins is all that the Holy Spirit is about. And if we are to blaspheme him, we are to reject his gifts. We find ourselves then in this state, are we rejecting the work of the Spirit? Are we blaspheming him and his work? I have to tell you that, if you are asking that question, the answer is most likely no, because to the one who rejects God, they won't care. If they blasphemed the Spirit, they don't care. If they've not received the forgiveness of sins, they don't care. If they don’t live the way that God would have us do, what Jesus says is the will of God, they don't care.
But to the one who asks, have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit? Have I committed the unforgivable sin? The answer is very likely no. And if you are asking it today, the answer is for you. No, you have not committed this sin. You have come to the church this day to hear of the good news of Jesus Christ for you, to receive in your mouth Jesus and all that he has to offer you, to be strengthened unto everlasting life. And so you shall be, you will be welcomed into the kingdom of God because Jesus has given you his gifts. And he has given you his Spirit. We know that the Spirit is working in us because we see it in our baptisms. And we see it by the fact that we're constantly seeking out the promises of Jesus, and in him the promises of God are all yes and amen.
How can Jesus do such marvelous things? How can he forgive us? How can he bring us to the very end and give us eternal life? Well, Jesus has always been met with derision and doubt, hasn't he? We see even in our passage today, that the scribes came down out of Jerusalem. They come to Jesus and are trying to tell the crowd, no, no, Jesus. He is possessed by Beelzebub, the lord of the flies, otherwise known as Satan, the prince of demons. They say Jesus casts out the demons. Don't listen to him. He is using the power of Satan to do it.
You know, I don't know if you've ever done this before. I remember when I was in the fourth grade, a friend had a Ouija board and we knew, I don't know why, but we knew that it was wrong to use the Ouija board. It was an instinctual thing. So we took the Ouija board out back to the side of the house where no one could see out the windows and see us. We took the Ouija board and we laid it on top of the dumpster that we had. And, I don't remember what question we asked it, but we asked a question and the thing started moving, you know that little arrow thing that points to different words or different letters. I don't know, I still don't know if it was my friend, Jon, moving that little arrow or if it was a demon. I do remember though, after using that Ouija board, I just felt strange, like I had delved into some realm of which I had no experience. And I think it is the same for anybody who uses these occultic practices. I will say it was still kind of a high to use that thing, that horrible evil thing, you kind of get a little bit of a rush when you do it. And I think people can become addicted to that kind of rush. They seek after that again and again and again. And I think that's why people are into things like healing crystals and horoscopes and astrology, and even magic. I think people do it is because they feel good in doing it. And despite the weird feeling that may come with it, your conscience can get dead to that.
The people gathered around Jesus though, listening to the scribes, were likely faced with that feeling to one extent or another, at least I should say the opposite of the feeling. When you accuse someone of doing things according to the devil, well, you would expect that there would be some darkness there, but instead the people gathered around Jesus sought him out time and time and time again, all throughout his ministry. Jesus attracted people because of his signs and wonders and his message, even seeing the largest crowd around Jesus was probably at least 15,000 people. Jesus fed the 5,000 men. It says that those were the men, not counting the women and the children. You can imagine 15 to 25, maybe even 40,000 people gathered around Jesus eating those five loaves and two fish. Jesus didn't have the feeling, the air of the demonic, and that might be enough for me and you, but still Jesus didn't just let it go at a feeling.
He looked at them and said, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will fall. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will fall. I remember the first time I realized what Jesus was kind of saying here: I walked into a church in Perry County, Missouri, the birthplace of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod here in America. And this church was a very simple plain church, a country church, but it had weird red bars hanging between the walls over the congregation, about 15 feet off the pews. I was looking at them and wondering what would possess them to put such an ugly thing in this church? You can kind of imagine that as these bars were there, they were plastered in from the outside and the rust that would start growing on the bars ate its way into the building and just kind of sat on the bar. The iron was all rusted, but that bar had a very specific purpose. And that was to keep the walls from separating out from one another. Because if the walls had done that, the whole church would fall down. These bars kept the church standing. You'll still see it in a lot of churches today. If they don't want to tear down the building, they'll put these supports in and they hold the house together. What Jesus is saying is that if the house is divided against itself, if the walls are separating and falling down to the sides, the entire thing will cave in. And so if Satan is using his power to cast out the demons that are doing the work of the devil, then his entire house would fall.
In Genesis three, we find God cursing the serpent. It was some very good news for us that he will put enmity between the serpent and the seed of mankind. The devil and mankind will hate each other. It's true. We often try to masquerade what we're doing outside of the devil, right? Even the evil things that are done in the name of the devil, things like those occultic practices that we find, or even the evils in our society like abortion, we hide it away from the devil. Usually we don't want to ascribe to him what he's doing. The devil is always going to do what he wants to do in this world. But if he's doing something that works against himself, he's not going to accomplish his purposes. If he's going to blow up an abortion clinic to stop abortions, the devil, isn't really going to do that. Instead, that came up in the mind of a sinful man and he carried out the action. If the devil did it, he’d be working at cross purposes. The devil is always going to agree with himself. His demons are going to follow his lead. That is what we know. So Jesus does not leave it with this feeling of, Ooh, did you feel that chill or, oh, don't you feel weird. Instead Jesus teaches that the devil is never going to work against himself. And indeed people knew Jesus was casting out the demons. Think of the man who was chained up in the graveyard. And the demon was cast out of him and the man was normal again and even asked to follow after Jesus. Well, the people knew he was casting these out. How could the devil do such a thing and fight against himself? It wouldn't work. Instead, what Jesus reveals is that he has gone into the devil's house, and though the devil seems insurmountable, Jesus has gone in and bound him up and is plundering from the devil all of that belongs to him. Yes, the devil is the strong man and, in this case, Jesus is the thief, but he's only taking back what is his own-His children.
Jesus sets us free so that we might indeed receive the Holy Spirit and not an unclean spirit. Jesus wants us to be filled with the Holy Spirit because when we are the unclean spirits cannot fill us. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will come to where Jesus has promised to be, the place where his word is read and preached, and his sacraments are delivered. Rightly, we will find Jesus in the church. And that's because we're filled with the right Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the unclean spirits have been cast out of us and the Holy Spirit has come in.
It used to be in the baptismal rite of the church, that we would do a mini exorcism of all who had come to the font. And the pastor would shout at the person being baptized, out you unclean spirit and make room for the Holy Spirit. It’s still an option today, but generally we don't do that anymore. It's a little confusing, I think, for some who may not know all of this teaching, but this is what would happen. We would cast out the evil spirits and have the Holy Spirit put into that person, bringing them to faith, bringing them to salvation, and bringing them into the very kingdom of God.
You see it is that when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we're not going to be inhabited by the unclean spirits who are going to push us to do the evil things. Instead, we find that even though we are filled with the Holy Spirit, it is our sinful flesh that turns our thoughts to sin. We will struggle against our flesh as long as we live; and still the Holy Spirit is still with us. As long as we are continuing to turn to Christ and his work for you, you will find the forgiveness won through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. But, even though this is true, it is also true that you choose sin because you're sinners and you will fight this as long as you draw breath. Yet, the Holy Spirit will continue to work in you, to turn you to the forgiveness of your sins, to salvation, to life everlasting so that you may apprehend Jesus with your own two eyes.
In fact, Jesus, even calls you something very special. He calls you his mother and his brother and his sister because you're doing the will of God. The will of God, of course, we know is to do the right thing according to the law. But the will of God, too, is to turn from your sin, to repent of your sin, and to find the forgiveness of your sins. And in this we find we are Christ's own family.
There is no better news than this. You have not committed this unforgivable sin, especially as you are here this day. You know that the forgiveness of sins is for you. Find it in the crucified Jesus Christ, the one who died to take your sins away, the one who died to give you his righteousness, and the one who rose from the dead to give you the promise of life everlasting. And in Jesus, we find the promises of God are yes and amen. And we find an advocate, one who fights with us against the devil and all of his works and all of his ways, we find our salvation in him and we find it delivered by the Holy Spirit. Trust in him this day, my friends, and you will find the forgiveness of sins. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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