David Bahn – Reflections

Mark 7:6-8

And [Jesus] said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

⁸ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

They sat in the pastor’s office and talked about getting married. “I’ve always dreamed about walking down the aisle with my dad as a very special thing.” They were both young and hopeful. Their suggested wedding date was more than a year away. But this was a distressing conversation: they were living together and saw nothing wrong with their plans to wait to get married. “I think God understands,” he said. Theirs was financial concerns. She was still in college, he didn’t make enough to have insurance for himself and her. Oh, but did they hope for a wonderfully beautiful wedding ceremony.

I don’t think I convinced them otherwise, but I tried. This is a mockery of God’s laws and a false path to life. The path to a blessed life is to get married now, and if you want to have a big ceremony, make it a celebration of life together as husband and wife – wedding dress, aisle and all. I don’t think they were convinced.

Somehow we’ve lost sight of the danger of abandoning God’s ways for man-made rituals or caricatures of true worship. Whether it’s in the form of sentimentality or overly-rigid liturgical rubric, we so easily lose sight of the true purpose of worship: expressing the reality of Christ’s reign in the hearts of God’s people and receiving from him grace and truth centered in the word of God.

There must be a thousand ways to do it, but vain worship is a sad blight on the soul of human religion. True worship honors God, seeks his truth, and blesses people in that process.

Mark 7:1-13

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, ² they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. ³ (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, ⁴ and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) ⁵ And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders,but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶ And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

⁸ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

⁹ And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ ¹¹ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— ¹² then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,¹³ thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”