NOTES for Mar 3:22-30

It is very difficult to understand what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is, but it becomes a little clearer when we begin to think about God and His forgiveness. Jesus says that ALL sins will be forgiven people—how, then, can there be a sin that will not be forgiven? If even we, callous and cruel as we are, find it hard to imagine that we will be in paradise while our friends are in hell, because we feel sorry for them, then all the more will the merciful God show mercy and forgive. Yet God does nothing by force. He cannot forgive someone who does not ask for forgiveness, someone who does not consider himself guilty.

If after death we stand before the face of God and see Him, it is impossible to imagine that we will not ask for forgiveness. We know nothing about what will happen there. We know only that what matters is how we live and how we love here and now. But we communicate with God—or at least try to, or even merely wish to—we want to pray, we long for the encounter. Prayer is given to us by the Holy Spirit. And if we deny the very possibility of an encounter, if we say that God exists but does not love us, that He has no concern for us, that He is far from us and that communion and encounter with Him are impossible, then we blaspheme the Holy Spirit and refuse forgiveness, for forgiveness is impossible without the Encounter.