Life is everything!  But what life?  Jesus tells us quite a lot about living life; he tells us quite a lot about a life to come.  Our way of living here is not our ticket to life there.  Our political opinions won’t get us there, nor will any sophisticated, nuanced allowances for the ambiguities of what people do with their lives, their bodies—as though these were their own private, self-begotten possessions.  The life to come is a gift of grace; that life is what happens for those who have faith and live faith in Jesus Christ.  Once we understand that we have been given this gift, once we have received this gift, this begins to have its radical impact on how we live, here.  Knowing we have that life affects what we do with this life.  Then, we no longer serve to live—which is fear and slavery—but live to serve: this is discipleship and freedom.  This is what Jesus was telling and showing us.

Jesus says, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.  But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell.  Yes, I tell you, fear him” (12:4-5).  He is speaking to his friends—Jesus offers friendship to everyone.  What a friend we have in Jesus!  Many times, he encourages those listening not to be afraid.  Here, I think Jesus means the sort of fear that compels compliance: when we do as we’re told so as not to be hurt.  We all have an aversion to being hurt or killed; it’s difficult to overcome that aversion.  And there’s no love, in such obedience.

Jesus is also talking about power: life and death power.  Here on earth, we take that to be the power of the state, perhaps, or the power of maniacs with guns or other means of mass harm.  Intimidation power—do this or I will hurt you power.  This is not God’s power; there’s no love in such power.  God never says do this or I will hurt you.  What God forbids, though it may well be a mystery to us why He forbids, He does from the very best reasons and for our very best.  What He tells us, constantly, from His infinite knowledge, wisdom, and compassion, is that if we do certain things, we will end up causing ourselves harm.  Then we go and do them and find out He’s right and hate Him and want nothing to do with Him.  Oh, our tangled hearts!

Jesus is speaking to us, again, of the fear of the Lord.  Let us know with whom we are dealing.  The one who has authority to throw us into hell is God.  Jesus isn’t talking about Satan, there.  Satan has no authority, or, as we find out in reading Job, no authority other than what God grants to Satan.  Satan isn’t stronger than God.  He isn’t sneaking around as if God had no idea what was happening or coming next.  Thinking about Job is a strong reminder that our security simply cannot ever be in the material defenses people struggle always to build against the misfortunes of this life.  There’s no safety in stuff.

Jesus is urging us to heed the one who has authority of final judgment over us.  Know who is speaking to us.  Know the one with whom we are dealing.  Our judge is speaking to us, giving us sound advice.  I hope that, by now in your discipleship, you have the sense that this fear of the Lord isn’t some craven groveling.  It’s attentiveness, it’s knowing who is speaking and knowing the supreme importance of listening when this One speaks.  Wonderful words of life!  And if we decline to listen, or let our thoughts wander whither they will?  We risk bringing upon ourselves the hurt and harm about which God has already warned us.  If you go that way, do those things, it can only end badly for you.  We fear, revere, respect, listen, and strive to obey because we believe—we have faith!—that God knows what He is talking about.  He assures us that He loves us and asks us for our love in return.  In the end, God is the only one who really knows exactly what He is talking about; He is the only one who is entirely trustworthy.  The rest of us—including me, oh yes!—good intentioned as we may be, make many mistakes—we aren’t perfectly reliable guides.  But we can share God’s Word.

And God’s Word tells us: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (12:6-7).  What is Jesus saying?  Fear and don’t be afraid.  No wonder people think, and thought, he was crazy!  Don’t be afraid, just fear the Lord.  But that’s it, isn’t it?  That’s the secret, the way of life for us here and the way to life hereafter.  Don’t be afraid; fear the Lord.

It’s hard to listen when you’re afraid.  When you’re afraid, it’s also the most important time to be listening.  When you’re in a life-or-death situation, you want to listen carefully when someone is telling you the way to life, especially when that someone loves you and has the power to get you to safety.  You and I may feel sometimes as if we don’t count for much in this messed up world, so saturated with beauty, so saturated with blood, and Jesus is telling us that, in God’s estimation, you and I are worth . . . well, we are worth far more than many sparrows.  You and I are worth the life of God Himself, in Jesus Christ.  The next time you want to tear yourself down, if you ever feel a nudge that way, remember also, hold in your other hand, the reality, the priceless, precious reality, that Jesus gave his life so that you could live.

Let’s listen to Jesus!  “I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.  But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God” (12:8-9).  Acknowledge, disown—diametrically opposed.  What’s common to both: speaking in the hearing of others?  Yes, but what is beneath and before all those words?  Breath.  Have you ever tried to talk when you were out of breath?  We need breath to speak.  We need breath to live.  We talk of taking a breath, as if it were just ours for the taking.  Like life.  Think about that.  We live this life perhaps all too often with a taking mindset, but God would give us the mind of Christ.  We must receive Christ just as we must receive each breath.  God gives Christ.  God gives the breath, each breath.

How would it change our way of thinking and living if we fully grasped that each breath is a gift from God?  Would we be so quick to spit in His face with our thoughtless words, so quick to strike Him across the face with our hurtful hands?  Not that you or I do that: speak without thinking or act with a little vindictiveness now and then.  When Jesus was being spit upon and backhanded and beaten with rods and the scourge, just who was being beaten?  Who were they striking?  And what did Jesus do: call down his ten thousand angels?  Call down fire from heaven to consume them all?  Wouldn’t that have been neat—what a movie scene that would be, but we wouldn’t have life, then.  We’d be walking and talking and taking, and dead in our trespasses.  God isn’t really into punishment, but He is very much into justice, and truth.

Jesus cautions those listening about something that has caused wonder, concern, and not a little worry ever after.  He says, “everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven” (12:11).  What is it to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit?  Lord, preserve us from that—whatever it is!  It isn’t to commit sin after being saved—Lord knows I continue to do that far too often for comfort.  We know that we have forgiveness being held out to us always by the hands of Christ through the Holy Spirit.  We also know that there are atheists out there, angry God-deniers, whom God brings to faith by the Spirit, so even their long history of terrible sin, of God rejection, can be and is forgiven.

Perhaps the closest we can get to what Jesus means takes us to the root of the Hebrew verb for blasphemy.  This word blasphemy comes from Greek, but the Jews had their own term, from a verb that means to treat something as if it were of no significance, no value: nonsense, foolishness.  To blaspheme, then, is to treat what is of greatest significance as if it were of no significance: love, life, forgiveness, salvation, God.

Our old friend, Scottish pastor and biblical scholar William Barclay, tells us a few things about the Jewish understanding of the Holy Spirit that mesh well with what Christians also believe.  Barclay writes of the “Jewish idea” that “the Holy Spirit was the person who brought God’s truth to men.”[1]  He also notes the belief that the Holy Spirit “enabled men to recognize that truth when they saw it.”[2]  Finally, Barclay points to the Jewish belief that the Spirit of God is the power both of creation and re-creation.[3]

Now, let’s put those beliefs together with what Jesus is saying about the sin of blasphemy against the Spirit.  The Spirit is the bringer of life-creating truth.  It may be that Jesus is saying it is the most grievous of sins to scoff at the idea of truth, especially God’s truth.  We live in times when any claim to know or have the truth is immediately suspect: after all, right?, you have your truth, I have mine and as for any notion that there could be a truth, the truth, and that the truth might be quite different from my truth?  Spare me.  It may be that Jesus is sternly warning those who deny the possibility of perceiving truth, especially God’s truth.  The truth can be remarkably inconvenient!  It may be that Jesus is condemning those who maintain that there is no power of re-creation.  For Christians, that would be regeneration, which comes with repentance, which comes with faith.

In other words, it may be that Jesus, who came to serve, is saying to all who have ears to hear: treat me however you will, but don’t make light of or deny God’s power to change hearts and give life to the dead, for those who hold to such denial, who pride themselves on such denial, make themselves guilty of the unforgivable sin—unforgivable because those who hold such views lock themselves into never seeking forgiveness; they therefore condemn themselves to damnation.  God doesn’t force anyone.  Ultimately, people condemn themselves.  For His part, God upholds their sentence.

The opposite of this sin against the Spirit is the gift of the Spirit: faith.  Have faith, Jesus is saying, only have faith.  If you have faith, you cannot be guilty of the unforgivable sin.  The one cancels out the other.  But how can I have faith if God won’t let me?  Who ever said that God won’t let you?

“I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell.”  Did you notice that Jesus said “after your body has been killed”?  Those who prefer to believe that death is it and then nothing forever are quite mistaken.  Our life is more than what we have so long as we have breath in these bodies.  Our lives, like our bodies, are from God, on loan to us from God, the property of God.  God makes it possible for each of us either to add value or, if we so choose, to treat what God gives as of only slight value or of no value.  We can live to ourselves, which is to live for our own destruction, or we can live to Christ and so obtain life, here and hereafter.  Life is everything!  Agreed.  But what life?  We can toil and plan in order to try to have everything here, or we can live, love, and serve for the sake of everything there.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay.  Gospel of Matthew.  Vol. 1  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  20.

               [2] Barclay, 21.

               [3] Barclay, 22.