Year 2, Day 154: Mark 7

Laws and Traditions

I learned something a few weeks ago when I covered this first story from Mark 7 in our weekly Bible Study.  Did you know that the washing of hands is not one of the Laws given to the Hebrew people by Moses?*  Perhaps you did, but I didn’t.  For all of these years I just assumed that Jesus was making some theological point about reinterpreting the Law by not washing His hands.  But no!  Jesus was making a distinction between God’s Law and truly man-made laws.

Apparently when the Jews come back from exile under the Babylonians – 500 years prior to Jesus’ time on earth – the rabbis understood that the exile was brought about because the people didn’t take their relationship with God seriously.  So they started writing down laws that would help keep spirituality central to the people.  While that started out okay … after several hundred years it had turned into a legal system of gross micro-management.  It is that system against which Jesus is acting out in this passage.

What this means, then, is that Jesus was being criticized in this story on the basis of man-made laws.  They are not attacking Jesus’ ability to keep the divinely-given Mosaic Law.  Rather, they are attacking Jesus on His ability to keep the man-made rabbinic law.  No wonder this chafes in Jesus’ craw!

Look at what Jesus has to say about them.  He quotes Isaiah 29:13 when he says, “You honor God with your lips but your heart is far from Him.  In vain do you worship God.”  Then Jesus tells them that they are guilty of abandoning God’s commandments in favor of their own man-made laws!  That’s pretty serious when you think about it.  I can’t help but wonder: how many of us are spiritual slaves to our own traditions rather than being in a genuine relationship of spiritual freedom with God?

My wife and I had a fabulous conversation about this very topic on the way to Winston-Salem yesterday.  Together we made a point that must be said here.  There is nothing wrong with religious tradition.  Tradition can be deep and rich.  But we need to have traditions that are rooted in God’s Word and help draw us close to God.  We need traditions that help us remember God’s ways and help us teach God’s ways to others.  Tradition for the sake of tradition is what is dangerous.  I think that is what Jesus is getting at in the first story of Mark 7.

Sin Abides Within

Then we get to a great passage.  What is it that defiles a person?  Sin!  Where does sin abide?  Within us!

This is a great story for two reasons: 

• First, it should bring us humbly to the throne of God.  Nothing we do on our own can escape the effect of sin.  Nothing we do on our own is good enough to earn God’s love.  We are sinful inherently.  That’s why we need Jesus! 
• Second, once we have this understanding, we should be empowered.  We don’t have to build up walls to keep the sin of the world out.  If we’re already sinful and God can heal us of that sin, then we can genuinely go into the world and proclaim God’s grace without worrying about corruption.  Of course, we do still need to genuinely protect ourselves from temptation and falling into sin.  We must absolutely protect ourselves from the lure of sin.  But we don’t need to worry about corruption.  If God knows the sin in our heart and can cleanse us from that, then let us go boldly into the world!  We don’t need to separate ourselves from the world as the Jews do in order to maintain their religious purity.

Syrophoenician

To that very point we march into the next story in Mark: the Faith of the Syrophoenician Woman.  She was a Gentile.  She didn’t observe the Jewish law.  By all rights, coming into contact with her would make a Jew ceremonially unclean.  But Jesus doesn’t avoid her.  In fact, He has a very playful encounter with her. 

Jesus makes sure that she understands that according to Jewish custom they shouldn’t be having this conversation.  She tells Jesus that if she has to be considered a dog to Jesus that she is willing so long as He can help her daughter.  Once Jesus sees a demonstration of her willingness to be humble, He heals the daughter – from a distance, even!  Jesus is not concerned about her Gentile nature; He is concerned about the status of her heart.  After all, it is not what is outside that makes us unclean!

Healing The Deaf Man

Finally we turn to the neat story about the healing of the deaf man, yet in the grand scheme of things, this story is not so neat.  Jesus’ ministry is finally getting to a point where He must start to be careful where He does demonstrations of God’s power.  He pulls the deaf man aside.  He heals the deaf man. 

However, the deaf man still doesn’t hear Jesus.  Jesus tells the man to tell no one; but the deaf man does exactly the opposite.  Again we see that the crowd is not interested in following Jesus and humbling themselves to the will of God.  The deaf man has an incredible miracle done to him that only serves to actually highlight just how much difficulty he really has with hearing God.

What is sad about this story is that it is the real beginning of the end.  Remember yesterday’s readings?  Jesus’ disciples had begun to go out on their own.  They are becoming the message bearers that God’s grace and love and mercy have come near.  It is time for Jesus to focus on what He has ultimately come to do: to die.  How will this come about?  Jesus begins this chapter by telling the Jewish leaders that they have abandoned God for a religion made in their own image.  Now Jesus does a miracle knowing that the man will not be able to obey His command to remain silent about it.  The path to the cross has now begun in earnest.  The inevitable agenda that was hidden is now capable of being clearly seen as inevitable.

There will be conflict.  There will be conflict of authority between Jesus and the religious leaders.  There will be conflict of popularity between Jesus and the religious leaders.  People will begin to slowly defy Jesus while other turn to complete and utter submission.  This chapter is a microcosm of what will come. 

That is why this chapter is so sad.  The disciples are ready; they only need two more things.  They need a genuine demonstration of God’s love in order to receive salvation and they need the Holy Spirit dwelling within them.  But on that note, that is why this chapter is so happy and exciting.  The march to the cross is obvious here.  But we know that the march to the cross is also a march to Pentecost!  Thanks be to God!

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*There is scriptural law about priests who are going to offer up the sacrifice in the temple needing to wash their hands.  But clearly that is not the same context as we are talking in Mark 7!