Maundy Thursday Sermon

"Is Washing Your Hands Necessary?"
[Mark 7:1-23]
April 13, 2006 Second Reformed Church

Does God require us to wash our hands before we eat? If we did not wash our hands before we ate dinner this evening, are our souls in jeopardy?

The Pharisees and scribes watched Jesus and His disciples throughout Jesus' Ministry, hoping to catch Him in a sin, so they might discredit Him. And the day came when the scribes and Pharisees noticed that Jesus' disciples didn't all wash their hands before their ate. So they went to Jesus and demanded an explanation.

We're told it was the custom or the tradition among the Jews that they would wash their hands before they ate. Mark tells us that they also washed their cups and pitchers and copper pots, and even their dining couches. It had become the tradition to wash everything well before eating, because God said that a person with an issue of bodily fluids, or a skin disease, or a deformed body part was unclean. So, they concluded that God must also want them to wash the dirt off, or they would also be unclean.

So the Pharisees and scribes demanded an explanation from Jesus -- "Your disciples are unclean; they haven't washed their hands. Don't they know that their souls are in jeopardy from eating that way? And what sort of rabbi are You not to stop them?"

And Jesus said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophecy about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,' and 'in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' You get rid of the commandments of God and hold on to the traditions of men."

Jesus said, "You hypocrites enforce your traditions, while you show contempt for God's Word."

The Pharisees and scribes were trying to enforce a law that they made up -- a mere tradition. God never said that we must wash our hands before eating to escape the fires of Hell. For all of Jesus' Ministry, they would ignore the Word of God and distort it, so they would not recognize that Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah. They could do without the Word of God, but, "Tradition!"

And Jesus gave an example to them: God's Law says that we must honor our mother and father and anyone who speaks against his father or mother shall die. But they had seen fit to invent the tradition of "Corban," which made the Law of God void on this point.

One aspect of the law to honor our parents is that we must assist them in illness and old age and frailty. We have a duty to care for our parents when they are at risk, just as they cared for us in the womb and as little babies who could not do for ourselves.

The Pharisees and scribes came up with a way out of this law -- by swearing a holy obligation. "Corban" means, "a gift to God" -- specifically, one given by a vow. So, if your father or mother came to you in need and you didn't want to give them any aid, all you would have to do was say, "Corban." In other words, you would say, "I've sworn my money to the service of God; I cannot break my vow to God to help you." Thus, the obligation to parents would become void.

Jesus exposed this insidious tradition to show that they were hypocrites, who enforced their traditions while showing contempt for the Word of God. And again Jesus said, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who enter to go in. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves" (Matthew 23:13-15).

We dare not require people to do things that God does not require. We have traditions in this church, and some are good traditions, and some are innocuous traditions, but we dare not say that they are required by God, or we will be hypocrites, like the scribes and Pharisees. Our traditions do not save us or damn us -- which is why there are Christians in every Christian denomination -- but if we make them requirements for salvation and show contempt for the Word of God, that may be a sign that we have never truly been saved.

Those who condemned the disciples were not of the elect, so they did not listen to Jesus, so He turned to the throng, and He called to them and commanded them to listen and understand: cleanliness is a matter of the heart, not the body.

Jesus said that no matter whether your hands are washed or not, you put the food in your mouth, it goes through your body, and then it exits your body. Hand washing does not make a person spiritually clean; neglecting to wash hands does not make a person spiritually unclean. The dietary laws were given to make a spiritual point about holiness and obedience to God. And Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. And there can be no misunderstanding about food: Jesus said that all foods are clean. The dietary laws are over and fulfilled in Jesus. No food is illegal or unclean for the Christian.

The point is that cleanliness is a matter of the heart, not the body. The cleanliness that indicates spiritual life, is a matter of the heart, not the body, They are the things from within the heart that defile a person, Jesus said. The evidence of being defiled, or not having a clean heart, is what comes out of the person.

The person who gives forth evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil deeds, treachery, licentiousness, envy, deceit, arrogance, foolishness. And we would rightly cry out with the disciples, as they did on several occasions, "Then who can be saved?" And Jesus' answer is the same for them and us, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things possible" (Matthew 19:26b).

So let us not be discouraged: Jesus is not saying that anyone who sins after conversion will become unclean in heart and be damned. Jesus is saying that if a person persistently, joyfully, unrepentantly, sins through evil thoughts, fornication, theft, adultery, greed, evil deeds, treachery, licentiousness, envy, deceit, arrogance, foolishness -- such a person, no matter what he says, these things which defile the heart, indicate that this person is a hypocrite, not a believer.

Still not be discouraged: King David, the man after God's own heart, after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, after he had Uriah murdered, after he was tricked into requiring the death of the man who would do the things that he did, after this evil came forth from him, he repented and was forgiven. David wrote Psalm 51 in broken-ness and humility, and he understood what the Pharisees and scribes did not: cleanliness is a matter of the heart. He wrote, in part, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter then snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have broken rejoice. Hide your face form my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit" (Psalm 51:7-12).

Our salvation, our cleanliness of heart is not a matter of keeping tradition or of physical cleanliness, it is a matter of the heart. It is a matter of believing that Jesus is the Only Savior and confessing that God raised Him from the dead on that first Easter morn.

"And when the hour had come, [on that first Maundy Thursday, Jesus] reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, 'I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God'" (Luke 22:14-16).

And Jesus calls each of us who believes, each of us who has received a clean heart from Him, to come to the table to receive the bread and the cup, His Flesh and His Blood. And still we hesitate, because we know ourselves, we empathize with Michael Been as he sings, "You say we'll walk right through Heaven's door, you must be foolin', our hands are covered blood red.."

Listen to these words from the author of Hebrews, and prepare to come, for Jesus has made the Way: "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:19-23).

And so let us pray:
Holy God, purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; wash us and we shall be whiter then snow. Let us hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from our sins, and blot out all our iniquities. Create in each of us a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. Cast us not away from your presence, and take not your holy spirit from us. Restore to us the joy of your salvation, and uphold us with a willing spirit. In the Name of Jesus, Who is Faithful and True, Amen.