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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
We probably all know people who mean well, but who maybe conduct themselves poorly; people whose intentions are good, but whose results of their intentions are bad. Likewise, in the business world, there are any number of case studies of companies’ good intentions’ leading to bad results (Investopedia), and surely there are similar examples in the Church. Today’s Gospel Reading does not explicitly tell us what the Pharisees and Scribes meant or intended with the washing traditions that they required, but we do hear Jesus say that the purpose or result of their Corban tradition was that they rejected the Commandment of God. And, Jesus said that there were many such examples of the Jewish leaders’ making void the Word of God by their traditions that they had handed down. This morning we are not going to, if you will pardon the pun, “immerse” ourselves too deeply in the little-understood Jewish washing or Corban traditions, but we are going to consider today’s Gospel Reading and the other Readings in such a way that we appreciate both the Word of God, which continues to speak to us in our time (Oschwald, CPR 25:3, p.38), and especially our “Washing Tradition” in keeping with the Word of God, both of which Word of God and “Washing Tradition” are intended to and, if we let them, do result in our salvation.
After three Sundays of our hearing the so-called “Bread of Life Discourse” from St. John’s Gospel account, today’s Gospel Reading returns us to our more-or-less-continual reading of St. Mark’s Gospel account. As we heard, the Word of God itself is at stake in today’s Gospel Reading, as the Jewish leaders insisted upon the teaching that their elders, or the “forefathers” in their faith, had handed down to them, that they taught and practiced, and so that they handed down to others. The Jewish leaders insisted upon that teaching even when that teaching and practice contradicted the holy will of God as expressed in the Word of God (confer Franzmann, Word of the Lord Grows, 186‑187). As Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading made clear in referring to Isaiah, the broader context of which reference we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 29:11-19), the Jewish leaders gave God “lip-service” and worshiped Him in vain, because their hearts were far from Him and they taught their commandments instead of God’s Commandments. To illustrate His point, Jesus quoted both God’s Commandment that all people honor their parents (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16) and a provision of God’s civil law, based on that Commandment, that called for killing those who reviled their parents (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9), and so Jesus showed how the Jewish leaders’ tradition voided the Word of God.
You and I are probably not doing what the Pharisees and scribes were doing, at least not in terms of their specific washing and Corban traditions, but we may, for example, wrongly think that we are holy before God because of what we do. We may sinfully dishonor our parents in ways other than by our saying that we are going to give to the church the money that we otherwise might use to support our parents, and then maybe not even giving that money to the church. We may sinfully reject the Commandments of God for the purpose of, or as a result of, false teaching that has been handed down to us, false teaching that we teach and practice, and so that we hand down to others. What God said through Isaiah was true in Isaiah’s day, was true in Jesus’s day, and is true in our day, for people are the same (Voelz, ad loc Mark 7:6a, p.466): by nature, our hearts are far from God. By nature, as today’s Psalm said (Psalm 14:17; antiphon: v.7a), we are corrupt, we do abominable deeds, and we do not seek after God. But, God seeks us (for example, Luke 19:10). The Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God the Father forgives us for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Jewish leaders gave their people more rules to keep, but those people had, as we have, enough trouble keeping God’s Commandments. We do not need more rules, but what we need is a Savior from sin, and that is what God gives us in His Son, Jesus Christ. An interesting thing about both the Greek noun translated “tradition” and the Greek verb translated “handing down” is that their common root-word is the compound of the preposition “from” and the verb “to give”, so the idea is essentially a “giving from”, and the same is true in Latin, where the compound “give across” leads to our English nouns “tradition”, as that which is given across, and “traitor”, as the one who “gives across”. Of course, we think chiefly of Judas Iscariot as the one who “gave across”, or betrayed, Jesus, but, as we considered in our Midweek Lenten Sermon Series one year ago, not only Judas Iscariot but also the Jewish leaders, Pontius Pilate, God the Father, and God the Son Himself all in some sense “handed over” Jesus. Regardless of who “handed over” Jesus, Jesus was handed over to death on the cross for our sins; there He died in our place, the death that we deserved. As St. Paul said in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 5:22-33), Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up, or “handed Himself over” for her. So, St. Paul can write elsewhere that St. Paul himself has “handed over” as of first importance what he himself also received, namely, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to many, including St. Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Because such faithful “tradition”, through which God works, is proclaimed, instead of the false worship of our lips and hearts that by nature are far from God, we can confess with our mouths truly that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and so be justified, saved (Romans 10:9-10). Unlike the teaching and practice of the Jewish leaders’ “Washing Tradition”, which only increased guilt and had only an outward effect, the teaching and practice of Christians, including our “Washing Tradition”, forgives sins and guilt and has outward and inward effects.
The English Standard Version of today’s Gospel Reading that was read referred both to the Jews’ not eating unless “they wash” and to “the washing” of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. The Greek words used for that “washing” are elsewhere translated “baptize” and “baptism”. Now, we should not think that the Jews were, in a Christian sense, “baptizing” themselves before they ate and “baptizing” the things related to their eating, but we should recognize that the original Greek words refer to a religious washing with water, and not necessarily by immersion. The preposterous picture of the Jews’ carrying their dining couches somewhere in order to immerse them may have prompted some copyists to remove the dining couches from the list in today’s Gospel Reading (Metzger, 93-94), and that preposterous picture also militates against thinking that all “baptism” was by immersion (Scaer, CLD XI:94, with reference to Pieper, 3:256-257 n.8). Oddly, some people in other religious traditions refuse to understand uses of the words related to baptism for what they are by definition, namely, religious uses of water, and those people also refuse to grant that baptism is in view even where its words are not used, such as in today’s Epistle Reading’s mention of the washing of water with the word—that is Baptism!—that washing of Holy Baptism sanctifies the Church, that is, it makes the Church holy. Those who are so washed, whose sins particularly trouble them, confess those sins to their pastors for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. Not the holding of harmful traditions and the leaving the commands of God but the forgiving and retaining of sins, is God pleasing (John 20:21-23)! And, those people so washed and absolved, are admitted to the Lord’s Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us, and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so they give us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. There is a connection between washing and eating, and the Jewish leaders may have gotten that much right in today’s Gospel Reading, which also mentions that which is in common, bread, and a cup. Yet, as today’s bulletin cover says, the only religious washing that Christians pass down is the tradition of Holy Baptism, and by “tradition” we mean not something that is a human commandment that is “passed down” but something that is instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in Holy Scripture (for example, Matthew 28:19), and “passed down”, instituted for the forgiveness of sins, to rescue from death and the devil, and to give eternal salvation to all who believe the Words and promises of God about Holy Baptism.
Forgiven and so transformed by God’s Word and Sacraments, we at least try to keep God’s Commandments. For example, we at least try to keep the Commandment regarding honoring our parents, and the Commandment that comes right before it, regarding remembering the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, so we do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but we hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. So, we also support the ministry of God’s Word and Sacraments by offering our first-fruit gifts to Pilgrim, and we can both offer our first-fruits to Pilgrim and support our parents, if need be. And, in regards to those offerings of gifts, Pilgrim has had the “tradition”, or “custom”, of passing offering plates, and Pilgrim has had the “tradition”, or “custom”, of using an offering box. Although there is perhaps more of a Biblical precedent for the offering box, there are good arguments for passing offering plates, and we are free to use either one, as neither “tradition” rejects the Commandment of God or voids His Word. As we emphasized with the stickers that we handed out to the new students yesterday at the LeTourneau University Church Fair, the Word of the Lord remains forever.
Even if the Jewish leaders’ intentions of their “Washing Tradition” were good, their result was bad, and, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions (Wikipedia). The Christian “Washing Tradition” saves us from our evil intentions and the hell that those evil intentions and all of our other sins would result in, if we did not worship God in the true and highest way of seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins in the ways that He promises to forgive us. So forgiven and at peace with Him, we rejoice now, as on the Last Day we will rejoice for all eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +