Traditions and Doctrines: A Meditation on Mark 7

In the opening verses of Mark’s seventh chapter, and engagement begins between Christ and the Pharisees.  Attempting to accuse Jesus and His disciples, the Pharisees (acting in their vocational office as teachers of the Law) challenge them as to why they eat without washing their hands.  Such ceremonial washing was a common tradition among the Jewish people, and the Pharisees accused Jesus and His disciples of erring against the traditions and the elders.

Of course we should remember, that ancient peoples like the Jews and Romans had no concept of what modern medicine would eventually identify as bacteria, viruses, and pathogens.  The Jews were not washing because they thought it would bring health benefits, but because it was a way of separating themselves from the pagan or worldly activities going on around them.  When Jesus addresses the befouled hearts of the Pharisees, He is not telling folks to stop washing their hands, nor is He ignorant of the creation which He spoke into existence as the incarnate Word of God.  What Jesus will respond to is a problem of the Pharisees which is also common in our day:  confusing man made traditions with God’s inspired Word.

Jesus pointed out how rightly Isaiah had prophesied of this generation, in their outwardly looking very pious, but inwardly being far from God.  To make His point even more brutally, He exposed one of their traditions which specifically violated the Word of God regarding the care of mother and father—a tradition where a person could claim that all their worldly goods would be given, upon their death, to the religious authorities, and thereby was no longer to be used to care for an ailing father or mother.  Not only had the Pharisees misused their tradition of hand washing to accuse Him and His disciples of doing something evil (i.e., that their tradition was equal to a divine requirement,) but they had built traditions which expressly contradicted divine commands.  Lest the Pharisees and the crowd be left in the darkness of thinking their humanly contrived traditions were equal to or greater than the Law of God, Jesus took this opportunity to teach them how vain and empty it was to attempt to worship or serve God through the constructs of men.

This is something we need to keep straight, too.  Human traditions are not bad in and of themselves—they are simply human, and as such, are subject to human flaws and sin.  You may have a family tradition regarding who carves the turkey when you celebrate Thanksgiving, and this tradition may be good and useful.  We may have community traditions about how to conduct a festival or parade in our home towns.  We may have national traditions around when to stand and how to hold one’s hands during the playing of the national anthem.  Good though they be, they are merely human constructs, and as such are not equivalent to the Word of God.  Because a human tradition is born of sinful and short sighted men, such traditions will always be earthly, temporal, and prone to change when situations require it.  No matter how grand or beautiful they may appear, man’s word of tradition cannot rise above the common condition of men.

But the Word of God is another thing entirely.  Unlike human traditions, the Word of God begins and ends with God, who is the same forever.  When God speaks, He reveals something about Himself which is immutable and eternal, untainted by sin or avarice, or the shortsightedness of temporal beings.  Therefore when God says to Moses and the people of Israel in the Ten Commandments, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” these words endure forever as a reflection of God’s own holiness and character.  We are not free to create traditions like the Pharisees did which contradict or obfuscate the Word of God.  We are responsible and accountable to God through His Word, not the other way around.

Of course, mankind is always prone to do exactly this.  If I can use a human tradition to avoid God’s Word, my own sinful flesh is greatly tempted to embrace the word of men over the Word of God.  I am also tempted to create my own traditions, and toss out those of our wise forefathers, because my love of self often exceeds my love of neighbor.  As a sinful human being I am prone not only to avoiding the Word of God through evil traditions which obscure it, but I am also tempted to destroy good traditions which highlight and accentuate God’s Word.  Both errors are equally wicked, and reveal the rebellious heart which beats within in my own chest—a heart poisoned with sin, deserving nothing but the death and hell prepared for all those who despise the only true and holy God.

Thanks be to God, that our Savior has not left us to die in our wicked rebellion against His Word.  As Christ taught the Pharisees, so He teaches us today, that man cannot be saved by the word of man, but only by the Word of God.  All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and so no man is able to save himself, let alone his neighbor.  From the traditions of Rome to the traditions of England, France, Spain, Ireland, China, Japan, or any other nation on earth, none are able to save, because all are born of sinful men.  But the Word of God which speaks the holiness of the Law to us, also becomes flesh and walks among us, so that He might become through His Cross a Word of saving Gospel to all mankind.  That Word of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection; of grace and peace; of repentance and the forgiveness of sins; of reconciliation between a holy God and unholy men:  this is the Word of God which seeks and saves sinners such as us.  This is the Word which begins and ends in God Himself, and which no human tradition can rise unto, nor outshine in its majesty.  This Word of God’s Gospel, this Word of Salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, is the Word to which we cling regardless of the shifting and corrupted traditions of men.  This Word of Christ is eternal life, for all who will repent and believe.

As we move through the season of Pentecost, it is good, right, and salutary that we examine ourselves and our traditions in the light of God’s eternal Law and Gospel.  Where our hearts rebel against good traditions which point to Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world, we must repent of our desire to hide God’s Word by destroying such good and wholesome traditions.  Where our hearts rebel against God’s Word by holding sinful traditions equal to or greater than our Lord’s Word, we must repent and tear them down, so that God’s Word shines most clearly not only into our sinful hearts, but into the darkened hearts of the whole world.  For we know that no word of man—no tradition born of sinful men—can save either ourselves or the fallen world through which we sojourn.  But the Word of God, sent by the Father in the power of His Spirit, is the Word of Jesus Christ which saves all who will receive it by faith.  To this Word alone may the whole world hearken, that repentance and the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake be proclaimed to every darkened soul in every corner of creation, and the eternal Light of Christ’s grace fill all the world.  Amen.