Mark 7:3 The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.
Hand washing has become a ceremonial practice during this last year, that and hand sanitizer! A nurse we know in Germany told us that the number of regular flu cases have been all but nonexistent because of the use of masks and hand washing among the military. Have you washed you hands more this past year? I know I have!
We get a peak into ancient religious life in today’s text. The religious leaders used hand washing, not the kind we do to remove germs and dirt, but a purely ritual one, every time they came from a place where they might have come in contact with a non-Jewish person. These non-Jewish people were considered ‘infected’ with sin, so the Jews needed to ‘cleanse’ themselves. Sound familiar?
We have made mask wearing and hand washing the new virtue. Those who don’t conform are stigmatized. Anyone who doubts their value is labeled a conspiracy theorist (the new unclean) and relegated to those who deserve to die, or at least not be ignored. What an age we live in!
Jesus’ contemporaries virtue signaled their religious performance to raise their stature in the society. And the disciples were certainly at the bottom of the pile in their eyes. They didn’t wear their masks! Well actually, they didn’t pour water over their hands (no soap, just water) in the specified way before they ate. How dare they!
Jesus not only confronts the hypocrisy of these leaders by giving them an example of their own rules violating the commands of God, but He then goes one step further. He blows up the whole foundation of the dietary restrictions set out in the Old Testament. That’s right! All the kosher/non-kosher distinctions are thrown out. We can eat lobster and bacon!
Jesus tells us that defilement comes from inside a person, not outside. Thus with one statement He sweeps away a whole class of Old Testament rules and regulations. He doesn’t lower the standards, but raises them by pointing to the true source of sin: the human heart. The truly abhorrent sins start inside us, in our thoughts and attitudes, and then they get acted out in our lives and our bodies.
What I find so wonderful is that Mark records a miracle of a deaf man’s healing in this same chapter. But Jesus doesn’t use a sterile surgical suite to do His operation, He uses unclean, repulsive spit to do the work. Talk about a forbidden activity in the COVID era. Just like today, bodily fluids are gross! I think this is fairly universal, except for kissing! I am happy for this exception.
You see, the Kingdom of God is inside out, not outside in. It is right side up, not upside down. Jesus is concerned about our inner being and how that inner being gets worked out in our outer being. Whatever is on the inside will come out, so clean up the inside. Get right with the LORD. Keep a shortlist of sin; confess frequently. Fellowship with others. Pray. Worship. Take care of those less fortunate.
So today when you wear your mask, recognize that it has value for others, not for yourself (unless you have a N95 mask, wear disposable scrubs and hair cap and change them every time you enter a new person’s presence, and don’t forget the hand washing.) Masks are not about keeping us safe. Masks are the cost of thinking a rule will keep us safe, and just like Jewish ritual hand washing, they don’t really accomplish anything.
The Arnold Journey 