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Sound & Season is a daily audio devotional designed to connect the routine moments of life to the rhythms of the Church seasons.
This is Sound and Season. It's Saturday, 16th day of Lent. Our passage today comes from the gospel of Mark chapter 7 verses 1 through 13. Now when the Pharisees gathered to Jesus 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 did not eat unless they washed their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
Jeffrey Heine:And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as 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, these people honor 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 commandments of God and hold to the tradition of men.
Jeffrey Heine: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 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 it 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. In many such things you do. This is the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to God. In Mark 7, the disciples are deliberately disregarding the handwashing rituals of the Pharisees. It appears that Jesus is intentionally looking for opportunities for his disciples to demonstrate that he was bringing a different kind of instruction on what holy living truly is. Jesus responds to the objections saying, Pharisees are dedicated to keeping traditions of their fathers, but not the law of God. We can be guilty of the same thing.
Jeffrey Heine:We too can elevate the traditions or practices of our communities and our culture and neglect the Word of God. Jesus liberates us from what is unnecessary, all that so easily distracts us from loving obedience to him. God is looking for more than mere lip service and custom keeping. He wants our hearts, And in Christ, he comes for us to make a way for us. Lord, hear our prayer, and let our cry come to you.
Jeffrey Heine:Let us pray. Lord God, almighty and everlasting, you have brought us a new day, a new chance to hear and believe the truth of your gospel. Strengthen us with your power, renew us in our hearts, and help us to celebrate and declare the good news of Jesus wherever we might find ourselves today. O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen.