Throughout the New Testament, the elimination of the ritual purity laws of the Old Testament carries deep theological significance. It is no minor issue that these regulations were eliminated. Why? Because they stood as a barrier separating Jew from Gentile. And if Messiah was coming to inaugurate the Kingdom of God – as Jesus has manifested again and again was His intention – and if the promises of the Kingdom’s inclusion not just of Israel but of the nations were to come true, then something would have to be done with the ritual purity laws which separated Jews from Gentiles.
This, according to Mark in the first part of chapter 7, Jesus did. Jesus pointed to the elimination of the ritual purity laws. If that is the case, then it would seem evident that He was also pointing to the elimination of Jew and Gentile. This implication is made explicit in our text today when Jesus extends his ministry beyond the borders of Israel and begins ministering to Gentiles.
In the text last week, Jesus vindicated Himself as the legitimate heir of Moses and demonstrated that, though the scribes and Pharisees claimed to speak for him, claimed to be his legitimate heirs, they were not. Their traditions actually undermined the commandments of God.
Today, Jesus returns to their opening question about ritual purity. “Why don’t your disciples wash their hands in accordance with the tradition of the elders?” But Jesus’ response extends beyond that specific issue to the principle involved.
Jesus’ response revolves around the question: What was the message of the ritual purity laws in the OT? What was the significance of these various rites – whether they were priestly washings or dietary restrictions or clothing restrictions or plowing restrictions? What was the message of the various laws of ritual purity?
For the Pharisees the message was that external purity makes one acceptable to God. The more ritual purity one possesses, the closer one comes to God. And so they took the regulations that were given to the priests – the highest level of acceptance – and spread those throughout society. If everyone is at this state of acceptance with God, then all will be well. God will have to accept us.
Jesus, in response, insists that ritual purity in the law was given as a symbolic reminder of the need for something far more needful and far more drastic – internal purity, purity of heart. The ritual purity did not make one acceptable to God in and of itself – it was an external expression practiced and embraced by those who loved the Lord, who already possessed internal purity. Without purity of heart, ritual purity meant nothing. Ritual purity could not accomplish or secure purity of heart. Thus the principle thing is the purity of heart not the ritual purity. The purity of heart is the essence; the ritual purity the accident. And Jesus’ words have all kinds of implications for the Church today.
In our text today a matter of utmost importance is addressed: how do we identify the true Jew, the good Jew? The Pharisees, we discover, are trying to sell themselves to the multitude as the legitimate heirs of Moses. “We have the true program for Israel’s greatness and prosperity. We have the capacity to identify the true Jew, the good Jew. How is that? By noting those who follow the tradition of the elders.”
Jesus responds by undermining their claim, first by addressing whose heirs they really are and then responding to the specific question they ask. He begins by noting that they are the legitimate heirs of someone – but that that someone isn’t Moses. They are the legitimate heirs of those who brought about Jerusalem’s destruction the first time; and they are well on their way to doing it again. Jesus vindicates this charge by proposing an alternate answer to the question – how do we identify the true Jew, the good Jew? His answer? The true heir of Moses is the one who does what Moses said. On this occasion, Jesus demonstrates the scribes’ and Pharisees’ failure to speak for Moses by highlighting one way among many in which their tradition undermined the Word of God. Rather than abandon their tradition to follow the commandment of God, they destroyed the commandment of God in order that they might keep their tradition. Whereas Moses commanded them to honor their parents, they invented the legal fiction of Corban to avoid their duty.
And so the answer to our opening question – how do we identify the true Jew, the good Jew? – drives us back to the Word of God and the commandments of God.
The examples of our fathers and mothers in the early church who died rather than renounce Christ stand as stirring embodiments of faith. They were able to take courage in the midst of their trouble because they knew whom it was they served. Rather than see their suffering as pointless or irrelevant, they were actually able to see the glory of Christ in the midst of it.
It is this basic lesson that Jesus endeavors to press upon his disciples in our passage today. Again and again he has revealed not only that He is a King but also what kind of king He is. In particular, in the feeding of the 5000 He has revealed that He is the Good Shepherd who has compassion for His sheep, who gathers them together and protects them, and who feeds them with His teaching and with food from heaven. You can trust me – don’t be afraid; believe Me. This is the type of King I am. I will protect you; I will provide for you.
Yet we find that the disciples have not quite figured this out yet. They’re getting closer, but they’re not quite there. And it is this story that we read today.
Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Mark has been confronting us with the identity of Jesus. He wants us to ask with the participants in the story, “Who is this man?” Today we find this question being asked explicitly and being given several different answers. But Mark gives his own answer – loud and clear and stunning. He does this by telling us the story of two shepherds, Herod Antipas and Jesus – one who is eating his sheep and taking advantage of them for his own benefit, the other who is feeding his sheeping and tending to their needs. This tale of two shepherds highlights for us important principles of civil government which help us to view our current political history rightly and avoid the folly of idolatry.
The last number of stories in the Gospel of Mark have centered around the contrast between fear and faith and the transition from fear to faith. We have witnessed the disciples in the boat – frightened to death by the storm outside the boat then frightened even more by the One in the boat. Jesus asks them after stilling the storm, “Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?” Likewise, in the story of the Gadarene Demoniac we have the mass of people frightened by Jesus while the demoniac is set free from fear and given faith. In the stories of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the flow of blood this same contrast between fear and faith is highlighted and we witness both of them moving from fear to faith. “Don’t be afraid, only believe.”
The story today stands in contrast to these stories. Today we witness Jesus returning to his home town of Nazareth and the reception that he had among them. The reception was not quite what we would expect – indeed, it wasn’t even what Jesus expected. But their response unfolds for us much about the nature of unbelief and the way in which we as sinners often form hasty judgments as a result of our misperceptions.
Last week we saw that the disciples faced a tough lesson. While going across the sea to Gentile country God schooled them, He caused the sea to rage and billow and then calmed it through the Word of Christ. He did this so that the disciples might pay close attention to what was happening; so that they would move from fear – fear of the sea, fear of other nations, fear of demon possessed folks, fear of demons, fear of tombs, fear of swine – so that they would move from fear to faith.
So foundational was this lesson that in the next story, in the healing of the Gadarene demoniac, the disciples never show up, never intrude. They’re sitting in the background, watching, listening, learning, soaking it in. They’re trying to figure out – “Who then is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?”
In our text today, we come to two stories that revolve around the same lesson – the contrast between fear and faith and the transition from fear to faith. “Who is this man? What has he come to accomplish? What are these events highlighting? What are they teaching us?” Here again Jesus is unfolding his glory, “Do you get it yet?” He asks. “Do you see? Do you believe?”
One of the things we have to understand as we approach the Bible is that it often uses phenomenological language – language that reflects the way the world appears to be to the naked eye. It is not a scientific text, it is a life text, describing the world as your average person looking about him might describe it. We continue to do this ourselves in many respects. We continue, for instance, as does the Bible, to speak of sunrises and sunsets even though we believe, according to current scientific theory, that the sun neither rises nor sets but that rather the earth is moving to give the appearance of this.
So it is with the Scripture’s description of the universe. If we lived, as did our fathers the Jews, on the edge of a sea that stretched on out to an ocean, we might describe the universe as a triple-decker universe. At the bottom of this triple-decker universe is the sea, the ocean – spreading throughout the world and surrounding all the portions of land, large or small, so that the land appears to be islands in the midst of a great sea. In the middle of this triple-decker universe is the land where we dwell. And at the top of this triple-decker universe is the sky or heaven. This is in fact the way that Scripture often speaks of the universe.
Because the Word of God describes the world in this triple-decker fashion, different sections of the world become metaphors for or pictures of other realities. Consider, for instance, the way in which Scripture uses the sky-heavens as a reminder of the Highest Heaven, where God dwells. Likewise, the Sea – which is sometimes called the “deep” or the “abyss” – “points beyond itself to The Abyss, the place where the devil and the wicked will spend eternity.”
But the use of this triple-decker universe to describe the people of God and the wicked, the nations who set themselves against God and His people, is the use I want to draw your attention to briefly this morning. Throughout the psalms and the prophets, the Gentile nations are often portrayed as the raging seas, beating against the land of God and the people of God, while God Himself watches from the heavens.
Note well, then, that one of the vivid associations that the readers of the Old Testament had with the Seas was the ungodly nations of the world, the Gentiles. The Gentiles are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest. They have no order, they lack the law of God, they are bereft of His Wisdom and His grace; they are constantly dashing themselves against the shore, raging against the righteous.
It is the knowledge of this association of the tumultuous seas with the Gentiles that enables us to understand what is happening in the Gospel of Mark today. We have to remember who Jesus is and what God is doing through Him. Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Servant of God, who according to Isaiah was to be the light of God not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles as well – it is too small a thing that you should be my Servant to restore the fortunes of Jacob; I will give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles – to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. God was sending Jesus to be that which Israel and the Temple system was supposed to be – a light to the world, a house of prayer for all nations – but had failed to be. In our text today, Jesus sets out into Gentile territory to begin this conquest. And as he does so, God gives the disciples a vivid image so that they can understand the true power of His Anointed. This one shall indeed bring the nations under Him.
