A Wildness About Jesus

Homily for Sunday, June 9, 2024
The Third Sunday After Pentecost
Mark3:20-35

A month ago in early May, in our first Baptismal Preparation session for Armaan, in the “open floor” part of the session when candidates can ask any question they want about Jesus, God and the Faith, someone quoted today’s Gospel lesson. We had been talking about Judas, “the one destined to be lost,” as John wrote in the passage we were studying that day. Amid a discussion about “predestination” and then also “double predestination” – which is the belief that not only has God “predestined” some to go to heaven, but God also has “predestined” others to go to hell – [in a discussion about “double predestination”] one of us said, “But God can forgive anything.  Couldn’t God have forgiven Judas?”  But then someone else wondered (quoting today’s Gospel lesson) :  “But maybe Judas had blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. Doesn’t Jesus say that ‘whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven?’”  

In just a moment, I’m going to speak more fully to that question, but first, C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan and Lucy Pevensie, after passing through the wardrobe and into the land of Narnia, ask Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about Aslan (the lion who represents Christ):

“Oooh,” said Susan.  “I’d thought he was a man.  Is he – quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will,dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“So he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.  

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”  It could be that by these words Jesus refers to the scribes who had heard him teach and had seen him heal and cast out demons, and still they dismissed him as a Satanic deception. Maybe Jesus is saying that, for those who have seen his power and still refuse to believe, for them there is no redemption.

Perhaps…   But I see Jesus’ words in today’s lesson as part of a larger pattern in Mark, a pattern that sets forth Jesus as one who saves because, though he is good, he is not safe.  In Mark there is a wild-ness about Jesus.  For example, in Mark Jesus enters the Gospel not in a manger but in the wilderness – the wild-ness– where he is baptized by John.  And after his baptism the Spirit drives Jesus deeper into the wilderness, where (Mark says) “he was with the wild beasts” (1:13).  

Further, in Mark Jesusis not “safe” because he is known to, and  has power over, the evil spirits:

Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?... I know who you are...”  But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet and come out of him!”  (1:23-25)

In Mark Jesus is not “safe” because he threatens the religious establishment:

They were watching him to see whether he would cure… on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him.   He looked around at them with anger… and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.  The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.  (3:2-6)

In Mark Jesus is not safe because his followers must “take up their cross:”

If any wish to come after me [Jesus said], let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (8:34-35)

And in Mark,Jesus is not safe because he warns of an “eternal sin” and says that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness.”

But it is just this wild-ness, this aspect of Jesus that will not be tamed, that gives Jesus the power to save.  Because he has this wild-ness, Jesus is able to tell the paralytic both to, “Stand up, take up your mat and walk,” and also to forgive the man’s sins (2:10).  Because he is un-tame-able, Jesus is lord even of the Sabbath (2:28) and he does heal even on the Sabbath.  Because of his “wild” nature, Jesus does have power over demons and he does cast them out.  It is his un-tame-able nature that enables Jesus to teach not as the scribes but as one “with authority” (1:22), that enables him to call disciples and they follow (1:16-17), that enables him to send them out to preach and even to give them authority to cast out demons (3:14-15). And even though Jesus knows he will “be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him” (9:31), yet it is “wild” of Jesus – “lion-like,” like Aslan– for him yet to make his way toward Jerusalem.

In Mark, Jesus is not “safe.”  He comes from the wilderness; he challenges the establishment; he casts out demons; he is Lord of the Sabbath; he knows he will be killed and still goes to Jerusalem…. And he warns of an unforgiveable sin.  Jesus is not safe–“’Course he isn’t safe,” said Mr. Beaver, “But he’s good.  He’s the king, I tell you.”  If we would find the salvation Jesus offers,if we would be in the presence of such a King who has compassion and who heals and saves, may we not – as did the scribes in today’s Gospel lesson – having experienced the healing, wholeness and life Jesus offers, [may we not] dismiss the possibility of God’s redemption and write Jesus off as a deception.  Rather – even though he is not “safe,” and even though he does name “an eternal sin” for which there can never be forgiveness –may we yet trust in his goodness and follow him as our Lord and King.

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