+ Pentecost 14 – August 30th,
2015 +
Redeemer
Lutheran, HB
Series
B, Proper 17: Deut. 4:1-2, 6-9; Eph. 6:10-20; Mark 7:14-23
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” so it’s said. Well if
that’s the case, I imagine many of us – including my desk – are in a pig-pen of
trouble.
Scripture is full of the language of clean and unclean. Even
so, it sounds a bit strange to our ears.
Maybe we think of Mr. Clean and those scrubbing bubbles –
after all, a shiny head must equal a shiny house.
Whatever it may be, we tend to think of cleaning as a
procedure: take a shower, pick up our room, or change a diaper.
In Jesus’ day the Pharisees thought similarly. They set up
rules and regulations to keep the OT laws to keep clean. They had turned God’s
instructions – which were given to reveal their holiness - into a list of
procedures which they claimed made them holy.
They didn’t understand that… Jesus came to make the unclean
clean.
Hence all the hullaballoo about clean and unclean food in Mark
7.
There is nothing outside a person that by going
into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what
defile him.
The disciples were confused. Maybe we are too.
After all, they knew their OT. Maybe you recall your Bible
lessons from Catechism or Sunday school. God gave Israel the dietary laws of
clean and unclean food. Leviticus 11 outlines it in Food Network detail.
Mammals that chewed the cud and had cloven hooves were fine, but if they did
only one or the other – no soup for you. So that meant no camel steaks, rabbit
stew, or pig roasts. Seafood was fine provided it had scales – no shellfish. And
those are just a few highlights.
What does
this mean? No bacon, bratwurst, lobster, or many other tasty things we eat.
Why did God give Israel all these instructions on clean vs.
unclean? Was he allergic to shellfish? Was it for disease prevention? No; it
was simply this: Be holy, for I the Lord, your
God, am holy.
You see, in the Biblical view of things, clean is synonymous
with holiness. Holiness has to do with God setting something or someone apart.
Consecrated or set aside. God’s giving of his holiness was not about procedure
but proximity. The closer you were to the Tabernacle or Temple, the closer you
were to God’s presence - the place where his glory dwelt. Once you were
cleansed you could draw near to God safely. That’s what the tabernacle and all
the sacrifices was about: making the way safe for unclean sinners to become
clean and receive God’s holiness.
To be clean was to be set apart; chosen by God. It was about
proximity to God’s holiness, not a procedure to earn his holiness. It was about
being in the presence of God and being able to see, touch, taste, hear, and
even smell his forgiveness.
So God called OT Israel a holy nation. Set apart by God from
the other nations of the earth. Out of Egypt, into the Promised Land. Israel
was holy, consecrated – for one purpose: to bring forth the Messiah in the
fullness of time. Now that the Christ has come in the flesh the fast has ended.
The feast is here. What was unclean is now clean.
And thankfully Mark gives us a helpful parenthetical
commentary on the cleanliness controversy:
Do you not see that whatever goes into a person
from outside cannot defile him, since it enters
not his heart but
his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he
declared all foods clean.)
To be sure, Jesus is teaching something completely different. Jesus
declared all foods clean. The Christ has come. Israel fulfilled its purpose. Jesus
came to make the unclean clean. So enjoy your bacon covered scallops – or not.
It’s not about what we eat or don’t eat that makes us unclean before God.
Rather, it’s what comes out of our heart that makes us
unclean. That sinful, ravenous beast within each of us. That’s the problem. Out
the sinful heart of each of us come evil thoughts. Ever have one? Speaking for
myself I find myself amazed and yet disgusted all at once. I said that? I did
that? My thoughts, words, and deeds – all of it unclean. No. Food isn’t the
problem. Food can’t fix our unbelieving heart.
So what’s the answer? How do we get clean? A procedure? Eat
this or that? No. Being cleansed before God isn’t a procedure; it’s about
proximity. What will save us? Grace, not works. Gospel, not Law. The Words of
Jesus, not the regulations of man.
Only Jesus can cleanse this sinful heart of mine, and yours.
And he does. Just like he did for the leper in Mark 1: If you will, Lord, you can make me clean.
I will;
be clean.
Jesus came to make the unclean clean.
And with Jesus comes God’s presence. His glory revealed in a
suffering servant. His holiness hidden in humility for you.
Jesus does the truly outrageous thing. He – the clean one – cleanses
us by taking into himself all our sin and uncleanness and brokenness. And he
gets as close to you as the Word in your ears, as the water splashed over your
head, as his body and blood that goes into our bodies. Jesus’ holiness and
cleanliness from sin isn’t achieved, it is received.
And so we pray the words of Psalm 51: Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me.
We sing those same words as we go to receive cleansing in the
Lord’s Supper. Jesus gives us a food that truly does enter into us and make us
holy. The bread is his body. The cup is his blood. Holy food that makes us holy
people.
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. (Heb. 10)
Rejoice, Jesus came to make the unclean clean. And if the Son washes you
clean, you are clean indeed.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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