God is the ultimate Judge

As I continue reading Mark’s Gospel today, there are some scribes, who, apparently seeing or hearing about Jesus driving out demons, say, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.” Then Jesus points out the fallacy of those statements: “How can Satan drive out Satan?” And then, toward the end of the episode, Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit will never have forgiveness but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” And then we hear, “For they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.” [Mark 3:22-30]

Maybe I’m too caught up with the divisions among us in our day and age, but I wonder whether we are tempted, instead of thinking, “I need to watch out about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit!” to think, “What he/she/they said was a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and they should never be forgiven!”  In other words, we can be tempted to look for justification for our condemnation of others instead of avoiding condemnation ourselves.

I’m not saying that there isn’t evil being done. There is.  I’m not saying that we should not speak up for what’s right.  We’re called to work for justice.  What I am saying is that God is the ultimate judge, and the question of condemnation is solely up to God to answer.

In this Gospel, the sin against the Holy Spirit was not only the false condemnation spoken by the scribes against Jesus.  First and foremost, their sin was one of obstinacy.  They spoke falsely about our Lord, which is a grave sin, but what’s worse is that they did so in such a way that they remained firmly grounded in their error.  They refused to humble themselves and reconsider their error.  And it’s this stubbornness that leaves them with an “everlasting sin.”

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from this passage is that we must avoid remaining stuck in our pride in an obstinate way.  We must always be humble and be ready and willing to reexamine our actions.  Humility will help us to perpetually remember that we can easily become misled in life.  And though this will happen from time to time in various ways, if we remain humble and open to change, then we can always receive the mercy of God and find forgiveness.  But if we’re prideful and continually refuse to admit our errors, then we are also potentially guilty of a sin against the Holy Spirit.

In Hebrews [Hebrews 9:15-28], we hear that “once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.”  That wasn’t an act of condemnation, but of salvation.  If we follow Jesus who did that for us, our lives are oriented towards love.  Instead of looking for reasons to hate, perhaps we can call on the Holy Spirit to empower us to love.

My merciful Jesus, I sin every day and will continue to fail to follow You with perfection. For this reason, I thank You for Your abundant mercy. Please help me to always be open to that mercy by regularly re-examining my decisions in life. Give me humility, dear Lord, to always repent and to turn back to You when I stray. Jesus, I trust in You.