"Is
Washing Your Hands Necessary?"
[Mark
7:1-23]
April
13, 2006 Second Reformed Church
April
1, 2021 YouTube
Does
God require us to wash our hands before we eat? If we do not wash our hands
before we eat, are our souls in jeopardy?
The
Pharisees and scribes watch Jesus and His disciples throughout Jesus' ministry,
hoping to catch Him in a sin, so they might discredit Him. And the day comes
when the scribes and Pharisees notice that Jesus' disciples don’t all wash
their hands before they eat. So, they go to Jesus and demand an explanation.
We're told it was the custom or the tradition among the
Jews that they wash their hands before they eat. Mark tells us that they also
wash their cups and pitchers and copper pots, and even their dining couches. It
was their 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 is unclean. So, they concluded that God also wants them to wash the
dirt off of their hands, or they will also be unclean.
So,
the Pharisees and scribes demand 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 says 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
says, "You hypocrites enforce your traditions, while you show contempt for
God's Word."
The Pharisees and scribes are trying to enforce a law
that they made up -- a mere tradition. God never says that we must wash our
hands before eating to escape the fires of Hell. For all of Jesus' ministry,
they ignore the Word of God and distort it, so they will not recognize that
Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah. They can do without the Word of God, but
"Tradition!"
And
Jesus gives 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 have seen fit to invent the tradition of "Corban," which makes
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 comes
to you in need and you don’t want to give them any aid, all you must do is say,
"Corban." In other words, you 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 becomes void.
Jesus
exposes this insidious tradition to show that they are hypocrites, who enforce
their traditions while showing contempt for the Word of God. And again, Jesus
says, "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 the 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 condemn the disciples are not of the elect, so they do not listen to Jesus,
so He turns to the throng, and He calls to them and commands them to listen and
understand: cleanliness is a matter of the heart, not the body.
Jesus says 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 says,
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, and foolishness ought to seriously consider whether they are
saved. 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, ESV).
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 is
tricked into requiring the death of the man who would do the things that he
did, after this evil came forth from him, he repents and is forgiven. David writes
Psalm 51 in broken-ness and humility, and he understands what the Pharisees and
scribes do not: cleanliness is a matter of the heart. He writes, in part,
"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from 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, ESV).
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, ESV).
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).
Let us pray:
Holy
God purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; wash us and we shall be whiter
than 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.
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