The people gather together to confess their sins of intermarriage
with foreigners. They have separated
themselves from these wives and now stand together in solidarity with God and
as a nation. The worship leaders are
arrayed before them and then the praise and worship begins with confessions. They make confession of their sins and their
fathers' sins and then the Levites begin to proclaim the story of the nation
and of God. The story begins with a
confession or creedal type statement about God's sovereignty over heaven and earth
and all that is in them and then goes forward to His merciful choice of the
nation and His continued and continual lovingkindness towards them in spite of their
sin against Him, right up to the conquest of the Land. When we worship according to the liturgy we
do the same things. We confess first who
He is and what He has done for us. He is
creator of all thing in heaven and earth and then we confess what He has
done. Jesus who, for us and for our
salvation, came down from heaven. For
our sake was crucified, suffered death and was buried. It is not only, however, his past
faithfulness that is celebrated, it is also His promise of future mercy that we
remember. We also come together to
confess our sins, we don't deserve His love and mercy. Then we keep the feast to cement the relationship
via the bread and wine which symbolize the sacrifice of body of blood on our
behalf.
Which is more important, the traditions of the elders
concerning washing hands before eating or the commandments of God, particularly
the one concerning honoring father and mother?
Jesus sets out the stark contrast and hypocrisy of those who question
Him on the matter of washing. Washing was
an incredibly important topic in 1st century Judaism, it commanded a
huge portion of the rabbinic teaching. It
may seem silly but it had to do with fear of contamination by the world and
keeping separate in much the same way the issue of foreign wives was
important. Jesus, however, says that it
is a relatively minor thing in comparison with the commandments. He broke down those barriers of clean and unclean
in relationships and in life. Many of
His miracles were changes in state from unclean to clean and that is something
only God can do. In his words concerning
the heart Jesus convicts all, not just those whose conduct in speech and action
are pure, we can control those things if we need to. The heart is the real problem and we need a
new one if we are to be truly clean. The
Good News is He promised to give it to us.
Did you notice the repetition of the word unclean in the second
verse. There are still clean and unclean
things, those categories haven't disappeared from view. Those things that are unclean are the things
God has defined as sinful for humankind and it always seems to begin with
sexual immorality but it also includes "her luxurious living." Those two things tend to go hand in
hand. As the wealth of a nation
increases so does its boredom with earthly things and when boredom hits we get
creative. That creativity born from
boredom generally leads to sinfulness of one kind or another, drink, drugs,
sexual immorality, and other debauchery.
God's people are called to come out of such things, to separate themselves
from these sinful lives, just as Lot was called to come out of Sodom. Where are we compromised? Ask Him to show you where He is calling you
apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment