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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“This is the Gospel of the Lord.” We all heard Pastor Nuckols declare that a short time ago, following the reading from the 7th chapter of St. Mark. And we all responded by saying, “Praise to you, O Christ.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord, huh? Is it, really? Maybe it’s just me, or maybe I’m having a bad week, but I’ve gotta tell ya: I didn’t see a whole lot of Gospel in those 13 verses. Do you? I’m open to suggestions.
As many of you know, the proper distinction of Law and Gospel is a very fundamental—though extremely difficult—practical component of Christian theology. The professors spend a lot of time drilling it into our heads at the seminary. They try to make us understand—just as Pastor Nuckols and I, as your teachers in the faith, try to make you understand—that almost all heresies and other errors in Christian doctrine arise out of an improper understanding or an erroneous application of Law and Gospel.
We must always try to keep straight that whatever God does on behalf of His creation—giving life, sustaining life, redeeming us in Christ, giving us faith, sanctifying us through the Holy Spirit, and giving us salvation and heaven—is Gospel. On the other hand, whatever we are required by the Scriptures to do—and what we continually and miserably fail to do, and the consequences of such failure—is Law.
Confusing the two and applying them at the wrong time and to the wrong individual can result in comfortable sinners getting even more comfortable in their sin, and terrified sinners becoming even more terrified. This will leave both of these unfortunate sorts of souls under the judgment of God, and condemned to hell instead of being properly moved to repentance and saving faith. You can see, then, how critically important it is to properly distinguish Law and Gospel.
No one’s perfect at it, of course. Martin Luther himself stated it was the most difficult skill for any pastor to develop. He went so far as to express a willingness to confer a doctorate in theology to anyone who could do it consistently and well. Conscientious pastors, especially good Lutheran pastors, do attempt to clearly proclaim Law and Gospel to their flocks and also to those in their daily interactions with whom they have opportunities to share it.
Other religious leaders—sometimes those erroneously trained, or who are inattentive, or who intentionally proclaim a faith which differs from that which God has given us through the prophets, apostles, and evangelists—can and do often proclaim a different sort of message. One which promises that terrific results will be yours here on earth and later in heaven, if only you will do this or that, in such and such a way. In this, they give many people false confidence and false hope that they’ve managed to mark off all the necessary boxes on their checklist. In this, they also give despair and terror to many others who realize that they haven’t been able to meet the stringent requirements that they are told God expects of them.
But that, dear friends, is not the Gospel. Yes, it may sound easier and more attractive to our ears to have some sort of specific tasks to do or rules to follow to ensure salvation, especially if following their plan also promises health, wealth, harmony, and happiness.
We all find those things attractive, certainly. It sounds like good news, a brighter future, a hopeful end result. But it’s not the Gospel—it’s simply another tantalizing temptation among many that the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh dangle before us. They hope that we’ll bite down fast and hard before we notice the sharp, barbed hook underneath that will tear open our souls and leave us hanging apart from the life-giving water of our baptism, gasping in fear and pain as our breath slowly leaves us.
So… what do we see in the Gospel lesson this morning, in those 13 verses from St. Mark’s account of the life and ministry of Jesus?
Mark begins by setting the scene, describing who is present and what is observed: Pharisees and teachers of the law had come from Jerusalem, the center of the nation’s religious and political life, to the area around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus was teaching and healing.
It was a journey of no more than 100 miles—for us, no farther than a quick jaunt up to Waco or down to San Antonio.
But in those days, on hot, dusty, rough roads—probably on foot or perhaps riding on an animal—it was an arduous and taxing journey. Yet, so impressive and amazing were the stories about Jesus which had reached the capital that these leaders had no choice but to investigate. This unauthorized rabbi’s teachings could be turning Jewish religious life literally on its collective ears, as people heard His words and re-considered what it truly meant to follow God.
And what do they see upon their arrival? That some of His followers were not following the ceremonial rules set forth for the washing of hands before eating! Mind you, nobody in those days had any inkling about germs or the spread of disease by micro-organisms. The washing of hands was primarily for appearances and for piety, not for good hygiene and health.
A very good idea, we now know, but by no means a certainty in those days.
Instead of approaching the individual disciples who were observed eating with unclean hands, they follow the cultural norms of the day and bring the issue to the leader of the group, Jesus. They confront Jesus about this violation, challenging Him with a question: “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?”
Basically, they were calling into question Jesus’ knowledge of the Jewish rules and regulations, or His ability and inclination to teach these rules to His followers, or His authority to enforce such observances upon them. The implication was clear: You’re not a real rabbi, Jesus! If you were, this sort of thing wouldn’t be going on within your sight! You’d make those people shape up, or you’d drive them out of your group for not following the rules!
Seeing into their hearts and knowing what they were driving at, Jesus comes back with an answer from the Holy Scriptures. His pull-no-punches response not only accuses them of hypocrisy, but tells them they’ve got their priorities screwed up, too. They’ve elevated man-made rules almost to a point of obsession, put their dependence and faith upon them, and set aside what God truly desires of His obedient children.
Had Jesus stopped right there, they’d have been offended enough. He’d called them hypocrites, implied that they didn’t know or follow the Word of God, and told them they weren’t conforming themselves to God’s way. Sort of like we say ourselves, each and every week when we admit in the words of our various confessional liturgies that we are unworthy, have sinned in thought, word, and deed, and have not loved God with our whole heart. For deep down, we are all Pharisees, through and through.
And as our many protests to the contrary arise even at this very moment in our minds and catch in our vocal chords, it just proves the point, and we are convicted all the more.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there, does He? He is relentless, and presses forward with His attack, even giving them a prime example of their inconsistency, hypocrisy, and non-conformance with God’s law. With dripping sarcasm He tells them, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” He points out specifically what the Word of the Lord says in regard to one’s mother and father, and then contrasts that to their tradition of Corban. Under this tradition, one could make a religious vow to dedicate his earnings to God, and get around providing proper support to his mother and father. Once made, such a vow was vehemently and vigorously enforced by the Pharisees, even though it clearly ran directly against the Word of God Himself.
They were looking out for their own interests, and for giving the proper appearances of piety and religiosity, rather than for having a right heart with God.
In making His accusations and pressing them hard, Jesus was giving an excellent example of properly distinguishing Law and Gospel. The Pharisees and teachers of the law who came to him that day had hardened hearts. They were comfortable sinners, thinking that by the following of their complex system of rules and regulations, they were showing their faith and were righteous in the eyes of both God and man. Yet here they were, in a backwater town in a remote section of Palestine, and He who is both God and man was staring them down, and finding them lacking. In their comfort, in their pious self-confidence and self-righteousness, they weren’t ready to hear the Gospel. They needed to hear the Law in all of its harshness, and its severity, and its judgment, and its under-the-microscope, under-the-bright-lights intensity.
They needed to be hammered upon until that brittle shell of false security was shattered, leaving a soft, weak, and defenseless soul exposed and at the mercy of God.
In speaking the Law to these men, Jesus was showing extreme love. He was not telling them that everything was fine. He wasn’t comforting them with the falsehood that it’s their intentions and not their actions that count. He wasn’t assuring them with the lie that their efforts would be seen as admirable by God. He wasn’t telling them that it’s OK to sin and violate the clear Word of Scripture as long as you convince yourself and others that you’ve got a good reason for it. He wasn’t telling them that they should close their eyes and ears to their own sin or to the sin of others, and simply accept it so long as it didn’t appear to hurt anyone else.
Jesus was giving them Gospel in the larger sense by first applying the Law to begin the preparation of the soil to receive the good seed of the kingdom. We can’t know the hearts of those individual Pharisees and teachers of the law who came to Jesus that day--any more than we can know for sure the spiritual condition of anyone in our own day apart from their outward behavior and words.
Yet it’s safe to say that some of them had hearts of rock that needed to be cleared or pulverized into dirt. Others had souls like a heavily-walked path that had been pressed so hard that the seeds would not be able to penetrate its rigid surface. Only a few might’ve had souls which were already plowed into softened soil, eager and willing to receive Jesus’ words of life and the kingdom of God as so many others already had.
So don’t despair or feel frustrated when you come across a difficult portion of Scripture such as this—one that doesn’t seem to have any good news or encouragement or words of Gospel hope within it. Remember that we—remaining sinners as well as having been made saints—still need to be regularly reminded of that, and given a dose of bitter Law before once again receiving the sweet, sweet Gospel.
So, then, where is the Gospel in our Gospel lesson for this day, where Pharisees and teachers of the law complain about the behavior of others and are chastised for their own blindness and hypocrisy? The Gospel is right where the Gospel has always been centered, in the One who on this day spoke to evil hypocrites by the Sea of Galilee, and to evil hypocrites in pews in Austin. The Gospel is there in the Word made flesh; in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.
It’s there in the One baptized in the waters which flowed southward from that Galilean lake, joining Himself to you for all time in His humanity and in your own baptism. It’s there in the One who would make His own arduous journey—not from Jerusalem to Galilee to see a radical preacher and rebuke him for His disciples’ faults, but from Galilee to Jerusalem to do a most radical work on a bloody cross. That work would rebuke sin and death by removing their curse forever, in spite of those disciples’ many and most grievous faults.
Yes, Gospel is there because Jesus is there, and where Jesus goes, there is the Word. Where the Word goes, the Holy Spirit works repentance and faith, and where faith is, there is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
That’s the Gospel, dear friends, and that’s what is delivered to you, in the speaking and the singing and in the hearing—each time we gather here where Jesus has promised to be for us.
So bring your unwashed hands and your filthy hearts. Bring your hypocrisy and your disobedience. Let Jesus’ words of Law drive all the pride from you, break up the stones and plow the soil of your heart and soul to receive both the words and the benefits of His Gospel love. Be cleansed again and again in the remembrance of your baptismal washing, and eat the food that makes you pure, holy, and immortal—the body and blood of the Word made flesh.
Gospel is found wherever Jesus is, and He comes here, for you.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
