Isaiah 29:13-15 NLT
13 And so the Lord says,
“These people say they are mine.
They honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
14 Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites
with amazing wonders.
The wisdom of the wise will pass away,
and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear.”
15 What sorrow awaits those who try to hide their plans from the Lord,
who do their evil deeds in the dark!
“The Lord can’t see us,” they say.
“He doesn’t know what’s going on!”
In Mark 7:1, we read, “One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus”. What did they want? Well, they wanted to check Jesus out in His observance of the Jewish laws and rituals, and in this visit, the Pharisees were concerned about the washing of hands before a meal. With some helpful information, Mark described the problem: “The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions”. Tradition was the driving force behind their ritual, not anything to do with hygiene. Jesus used this encounter to point out the words in our reading today concerning “man-made rules learned by rote”. He said to them, ” … You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition” (Mark 7:6-8).
Don’t we human beings love tradition? It has the familiarity of an old slipper or favourite jumper. We lapse into behaviours that boost our well-being, like travelling a well-worn groove, and we even say we are in a bit of a rut. But with Jesus around, the status quo was constantly challenged because no one knew what He would do next. The Pharisees certainly didn’t expect Him to rubbish their rules and regulations that had been in place for centuries. I suppose they never bothered to check what they did against God’s Word, just to make sure they were doing what He commanded. But some traditions are important, traditions like going to a Sunday morning meeting in church. Or prioritising a Tuesday evening prayer meeting over something on television. Traditions like reading God’s Word every day and setting aside time for personal prayer. Such traditions are positive, but they can become something done by rote, lacking any spiritual life or connection with God, if we are not careful. I remember a time when I attended a Church of England, going through the motions of the liturgy but failing to find any life within it. It was just something I had done ever since I started going to church as a small boy with my parents. Paul wrote to Timothy, “You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. … They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!” (2 Timothy 3:1-2, 5). And James 1:22: “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves“.
Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites. They were acting out their Jewish religion, but didn’t really believe it. In the middle of the woes to the Pharisees chapter (Matthew 23), we find, “What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness”(Matthew 23:27-28). Did they take Jesus’ accusations to heart? I don’t think they did, because in His trial, the religious leaders, a group that included the Pharisees, called for His death. Jesus rejected their traditions, but He didn’t propose abandoning the Mosaic Law. He said, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose” (Matthew 5:17). And a few verses later, He is recorded as saying, “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”
But we pilgrims need to note that we are not made righteous by Pharisaical devotion and dedication to applying the Law in our lives, right down to tithing from our herb garden. Paul wrote, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). And to the Corinthians Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). There is only one way to Heaven, and that is through Jesus, as He said, “ … I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). That path was open to the Pharisees if they repented of their hypocrisy and sins, but I suspect not many did, as they preferred their cosy lives in charge of Israel’s religious system rather than face the fury of their peers and loss of their status, should they renounce all to follow Jesus. The path to righteousness in God’s sight is open to all mankind, but most in our Western societies have chosen the broad way that leads to destruction. And so we always look for an opportunity to help the spiritually blind to find the narrow gate that leads to life, eternal life with Jesus.
Dear Lord Jesus. Please lead us to the harvest of souls that are ready and waiting for an introduction to Your Kingdom. Thank You for coming to this world, bringing a “way back to God from the dark paths of sin”. We praise and worship You today. Amen.
