Mark 3:20-35 (Pentecost 3B)
St. John, Galveston 6/9/24
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the Athanasian Creed, we confess that “In this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three persons are coeternal with each other and coequal, so that in all things, as has been stated above, the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshiped.  Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.”

Perhaps a modern rendition of that last statement would read, “whoever desires to be saved must feel thus about the Trinity. These days it would seem that our feelings are much more highly valued than are our thoughts and opinions. Or, perhaps we simply consider feelings and thoughts to be interchangeable. Thus, given a particular issue, whether it be political or religious, or anything else, one is just as likely to be asked “how do you feel about this issue,” as they are to be asked, “what do think about this issue?”

I’m not going to preach this morning about feelings, in part, well, in part because we are LCMS Lutherans. As Dr. Oswald Hoffman, of the Lutheran Hour, once said, “LCMS Lutherans are God’s frozen people.” In all seriousness, while we recognize that feelings are an important part of our lives, we also recognize that they aren’t a solid foundation on which to build our faith. Our thoughts, on the other hand, are extremely important to our faith. In fact, they’re crucial to our faith and to what we believe and confess about Jesus and the Trinity, as well as, about our salvation. Thus, we confess in the Creeds of the Church, “whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.” Our problem is that, apart from the Holy Spirit, our thoughts about Jesus are subject to disorder and to confusion and even error.

By the time we meet up with Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading, He has been traveling for some time through Galilee, as well as, the southern portions of Israel. Crowds have begun to follow Him because they’ve witnessed or heard about the great works He has done. He goes to His hometown and something peculiar happens. When He makes it to His home, His family “went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.””

Obviously, the thoughts of the members of Jesus’ own family were not ordered aright. I suppose, in some sense, it’s hard to blame them for what they were thinking about Him. It seemed like wherever He went, He was making a scene. “He said He could forgive sins. He told His disciples He would make them fishers of men. He spoke directly to demons. He disregarded Old Testament laws. He claimed to be “Lord of the Sabbath.” From a purely human perspective, it’s the kind of stuff crazy people say.”

The scribes too were rejecting Jesus, although their thoughts about Him were much more sinister in nature. In fact, what they thought about Jesus moved them to commit a sin that could not be forgiven. They attributed the works of Jesus to Beelzebul. They said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And so, God had come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, and the scribes saw His work as demonic, rather than as holy.

So, from a purely logical point of view, the scribes thoughts about Jesus were disordered and confused. And, in one sense, it was those disordered and confused thoughts that caused them to reject Jesus as the Messiah, the One who was to come into the world.

Out of love for the scribes, in an effort to order their thoughts rightly, Jesus first countered the position they had taken with a logical argument. “How can Satan cast out Satan (He asked)? 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.”

Now, a moment ago I said, in one sense, it was the scribes disordered and confused thoughts that caused them to reject Jesus. I said that because there was something far greater that caused the scribes to reject Jesus. At the end of the reading, Jesus assessed the scribes situation, their condition, saying, “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.””

Elsewhere in the Scriptures, we are told that, “no one can say, Jesus is Lord, without the Holy Spirit.” Anyone, of course, can utter those words, but only by the Holy Spirit can a person utter them as a confession of his or her faith. The unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is ultimately the rejection of Him. It is unforgivable, because without the Holy Spirit a person cannot think rightly about Jesus.

Luther reminds us, in his explanation to the third article of the Apostle’s Creed, that we “cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Christ, our Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called us by the gospel, enlightened us with His gifts and sanctified and kept us in the one true faith.”

It is incredibly gracious and merciful of God that He has not left our salvation up to us or to our disordered and confused thoughts about Jesus and the Holy Trinity. It is the Holy Spirit, given to you in your baptism, and continually given to you through the hearing and reading of God’s word, that empowers you to confess with all certainty, that Jesus is Lord, and, more pointedly, that He is your Lord and Savior.

Jesus has indeed entered the strong man’s house and plundered him and his goods. He cast out demons, not by the power of Beelzebul, but by His own power, that He might save His own from the devil’s destructive ways and tyranny. Contrary to the thoughts and beliefs of the scribes, Jesus came into he world in fulfillment of God’s promise to set the world aright in the aftermath of Adam’s sin.

To the serpent, the devil, He said, “because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.”

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

In accord with that promise, Jesus, the seed of the woman, bruised, He crushed the head of the serpent by giving Himself on the cross for the sins of the world. As we sometimes confess in the preface before Holy Communion, 
“It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times and and in all places give thanks to You, O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God: Who on the tree of the cross did give salvation to mankind that, as death arose, so Life also might rise again; and that he who by a tree once overcame, might likewise by a tree be overcome, through Christ, our Lord.”  

Lord, we pray that you would so order our thoughts aright, that we might give all glory, honor, thanks and praise to you.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +