Lent 2026 Day 2: Thu 19 Feb
Mark 3:23-30
23 So Jesus called them together and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand. 26 And if Satan is divided and rises against himself, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 Indeed, no one can enter a strong man’s house to steal his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.
28 Truly I tell you, the sons of men will be forgiven all sins and blasphemies, as many as they utter. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of eternal sin.” 30 Jesus made this statement because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
The accusations being thrown at Jesus were indeed ridiculous. Jesus’ retort is to reveal the silliness of their accusation – how can Satan drive out Satan?! Jesus explores this further as he ponders aloud the consequences if Satan could drive out Satan – there’d be a mess.
Mark was not writing from first-hand experience of Jesus (it is said that Peter and others had shared some eyewitness accounts). Nor was he necessarily writing a biography as we know it, where events would be placed in some chronological order. Our leaders and influencers today can share their thoughts, and these will be transcribed, recorded, transmitted straight away for common access at any time, sometimes to their future embarrassment! The words of Jesus were heard by many people but recorded mainly in grey matter memory. Stories and sayings were later gathered from many witnesses into written records for passing around the new churches. When you have a volume of the sayings of Jesus you probably don’t worry too much about their chronological order but may group them together in themes.
In verse 27 Jesus talks about binding a strong man. This may or may not be an integral part of Jesus’ reply to the scribes. Judge for yourself. The verses following do seem to be unconnected, being concerned with the sin of blasphemy. Jesus says that blasphemy is forgivable except when used against the Holy Spirit. I have to say that I do not (yet) understand why Jesus made this exception. Mark implies that Jesus was accusing the scribes of this blasphemy because, through their ignorance, they’d labelled the Holy Spirit residing in Jesus as Beelzebub, the Prince of demons. Sometimes the Gospel writer is making a point on some matter that may have been more relevant to the time and situation than it is now, so sometimes we may feel that discussion and arguments might feel a bit laboured from our perspective. We need to know the Middle-Eastern mindset in order to understand some things better
Is it possible to be guilty of a sin that we were unaware of committing?
How precious to you is the Holy Spirit?
Are there passages in the Gospels that might need a Middle-Eastern approach to help understand them better, or are Mark’s words equally accessible to 20th Century Western readers?
Father God, it is by your Holy Spirit that your Son Christ Jesus lives in me. Would you reveal more of his nature and purpose in my life. Amen.
Paul