AUG 23, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The text for our meditation today is the Holy Gospel recorded in the seventh chapter of Mark, verses one through thirteen.

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. ) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban' (that is, given to God) — then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."

Thus far the text.

As he had done so many times before, Jesus once again crosses paths with the Pharisees, the most zealous teachers among the Jews. And, once again, they have a bone to pick with Jesus. In the past, they’ve taken issue with his forgiving of sins, his eating with tax collectors, and his manner of fasting. And now they provide a friendly reminder that Jesus’ disciples are eating without washing their hands.

OK, maybe it wasn’t a friendly reminder. This was in fact a most unfriendly rebuke of Jesus and his disciples with regard to their cleanness, but there’s a problem. These Pharisees are not pointing out an infraction of God’s Law, but the laws of men. The Old Testament says absolutely nothing about one becoming unclean from eating with unwashed hands.

Now, kids, this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to wash your hands when Mom and Dad tell you to—we don’t want anyone to get sick!

But the Pharisees once again demonstrate their vanity and hypocrisy in demanding obedience to the law of men, rather than the Word of God alone.

Jesus points to the condition of your hearts because he wants you to recognize your fallen nature—that you’re not sinful because you sin, but rather you sin because you’re sinful. It all begins in the heart, which is sinful and is deserving of everlasting death even before one is born and breathes air for the first time.

Fortunately, that is not the end of the story. For despite your uncleanness before God that you can never wash away, God himself washed us and made you clean. And I’m not talking about a bath, shave, and clean clothes.

The Lord cleansed your hearts. In fact, Scripture describes it as replacing your sinful heart of stone with a heart of flesh—a heart that trusts in him. This is the heart that the Pharisees lacked, no matter how good they looked on the outside. All of the good works that God expects of his people, works that testify to their faith and let their Gospel light shine before men, God himself has to grant to them. For whatever does not derive from faith is sin, even the good works of those who are not believers. Dear Christians, your gracious Lord cleansed your heart and changed it in your baptism. There he cleansed you in the washing of water with the word.

God is concerned with the purity of one’s heart, not one’s adherence to ceremonial rules. These Pharisees literally held themselves to outward righteousness until the cows came home, and yet as Jesus said, their hearts were far from him. God looks into the heart, not to outward behavior.

But before you breathe a sigh of relief, hear again our Lord’s words about the heart of man. Jesus said what comes out of a man is what defiles a man. From within, out of the heart, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.

Now, if I’m not mistaken, Jesus just told you that all of these things come from your heart, and that they defile you. And I also did not hear the word "if"—if these things proceed from your heart they will defile you.

No, your Lord tells you that in fact all of these things proceed from all of your hearts. And you’ll notice that the things he mentions are transgressions against his Ten Commandments: murder, fornication, theft, slander, coveting—there’s 5 through 10 right there, and I didn’t even repeat the entire list!

Dear Christians, it is essential to your eternal welfare that you understand the serious-ness of your situation.

Sin, the transgression—the breaking--of God’s law, is not limited to outward sinful acts. You are fooling yourself if your think you’re doing alright simply because you haven’t killed anyone, had an extra marital affair, committed grand theft, or lied about someone in a court of law. All of you have sinned against God through anger, lust, covetousness, failure to help another, and the list goes on.

Jesus looks into your hearts, and mine. And out of the heart proceeds nothing but sin and iniquity. This has been the case for all men since the birth of Cain and Abel. Now, the world around us likes to put in its own two cents about the goodness or badness, if you will, of mankind. One popular notion is that man is basically good, and that it’s the evil found in society that corrupts him. Another one that is popular among Christians is that man is born neutral—that young children are neither good nor sinful, and their upbringing will determine what kind of people they are to become.

Scripture, however, says something else entirely. It tells us that the desires of man’s heart are only evil continually, that through one man sin came into the world, and on account of sin, death. Scripture further declares that you are shapen in iniquity and that you are conceived in sin. So much for being basically good!

But can’t you do something about it? Knowing that you have original sin, doesn’t that just mean that you need to try harder?

Well, what does Scripture say? It says that the wages of sin is death, and that one who breaks the minutest detail of the law is guilty of breaking it all. So much for evening the score and making up for our sin and guilt!

Jesus points to the condition of your hearts because he wants you to recognize your fallen nature—that you’re not sinful because you sin, but rather you sin because you’re sinful. It all begins in the heart, which is sinful and is deserving of everlasting death even before one is born and breathes air for the first time.

Fortunately, that is not the end of the story. For despite your uncleanness before God that you can never wash away, God himself washed us and made you clean. And I’m not talking about a bath, shave, and clean clothes.

The Lord cleansed your hearts. In fact, Scripture describes it as replacing your sinful heart of stone with a heart of flesh—a heart that trusts in him. This is the heart that the Pharisees lacked, no matter how good they looked on the outside. All of the good works that God expects of his people, works that testify to their faith and let their Gospel light shine before men, God himself has to grant to them. For whatever does not derive from faith is sin, even the good works of those who are not believers. Dear Christians, your gracious Lord cleansed your heart and changed it in your baptism. There he cleansed you in the washing of water with the word.

St. Paul said to the young pastor Titus, "When the goodness and loving kindness of God appeared in Christ Jesus, he saved you—not on account of the righteous deeds you’ve done, but by virtue of his mercy in the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out richly upon you through Christ Jesus your Savior, that you might be justified by his grace and made an heir of eternal life."

Through this washing, God in his love and mercy toward you enabled you to trust in him, and live a life that is pleasing to him. A true and living faith will produce good works. For though God looks to the heart and knows whether one truly believes, the believing heart will show its faith to others.

As Luther put it, God saves by his grace through faith alone, but true faith is never alone. While your works don’t save you, they are the natural outgrowth of the faith that God gives you through his means of grace— his Word and Sacrament.

Christ Jesus shed his blood for you, and his blood continues to plead on behalf of sinners. He has promised and continually delivers, the forgiveness of all of your sins. And therein he has made you heirs of everlasting life.

Christ is Risen.