When was the last time you spent a time in worship like the
Israelites did this day? They had gathered in sackcloth and fasting with earth
on their heads. Can you imagine a group of Christians doing such things? They separated themselves from the foreigners. This was a time for the people of God to
confess their waywardness and to repent, not a time for a seeker-sensitive
moment. They spent a quarter of the day listening to the Word of God and
another quarter of a day repenting and worshipping Him for their failure to
keep the Word and His faithfulness in spite of that failure. They did the important work of remembering,
remembering His faithfulness to the nation and remembering where they had gone
astray. They remembered who He is and who they are and rejoiced that He is a
God who is merciful and forgiving. We
need to remember that same way, it is, quite simply, the flow of the liturgy if
we will immerse ourselves in it in worship.
Whose tradition do the scribes and Pharisees accuse Jesus
and the disciples of breaking? The tradition of the elders. Jesus immediately turns their accusation on
their heads by asking, in response, “And why do you break the commandment of
God for the sake of your tradition?”
After His rebuke of the accusers, Jesus speaks to the real problem in
our lives, the stuff that comes out of our mouths rather than what goes in
them. The mouth speaks the overflow of the heart and we are defiled from the
inside out, not the outside in by food.
Washing the hands is a secondary issue, not a primary one from the point
of view of real cleanness. Dealing with
the sin within us should be our first order of business. If we were as OCD about sin as we can be
about germs, we might actually make progress in sanctification.
Do we need to know where this Babylon the great is? We need to examine ourselves and see if we
are guilty of defiling ourselves by participation in immorality of one type or
another. Perhaps Babylon is the internet
or streaming video or other entertainment we engage in not in a city but in our
own home. The angel calls God’s people
to come out of Babylon lest they share in her judgment. The images here are like Sodom and Gomorrah
as far as God’s judgment is concerned and we, like Lot, are called to come out
that we might be spared. Can we leave
without looking back in longing? Only if
we don’t see the kingdom of God as more desireable.
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