GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:28-29
Blasphemous Blockage
An apartment building was on fire. After firefighters extinguished the fire, they searched the building. On the third floor, they found a door blocked by a large chest of drawers. The chest was tightly jammed in the doorway, and they had to chop it apart to gain access to the room. Behind the chest, they discovered a man’s body. Neighbors they interviewed said that the chest was very valuable; it belonged to one of the victim’s ancestors who was one of the nation’s Founding Fathers. Piecing the details together, they concluded that the man had been trying to save the valuable chest. He had pushed the chest into the doorway, where it became lodged. The man could not push it through the door or pull it back; he was trapped by his own action and perished.
St. Mark said that teachers of the law, dispatched by the religious authorities in Jerusalem, saw people healed through Jesus’ prayer and they accused him of healing people because he was filled with Satan. The claimed Satan was the source of the evil spirits being cast out of people. After Jesus dismantled their absurd charges, he said, “Truly, I say to you that all sins and whatsoever blasphemes they may blaspheme will be forgiven to the sons of men. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” (Mark 3:28-29)
The doorway to forgiveness—even the most heinous sin, blasphemy—is open. However, like the man in the story above, those who block the doorway to forgiveness will perish. In Mark’s account, Jesus accused the well-dressed, perfumed, pompous Jerusalem delegates of blocking the doorway of forgiveness. They could not go through the doorway because they attributed the work of the Father to Satan. Figuratively speaking, others pushed the stalwart deniers aside and went through the doorway of forgiveness, but the blasphemers did not. Their cold-hearted, callous refusal meant they would perish beside the foolish man in the opening story.
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