Jesus nails the Pharisees, calling them frauds and comparing their inner lives to pollution and vomit. I find myself internally cheering Jesus on in these passages. Somehow believing I'm more like Him than like the religious leaders, I judge their lives as more reprehensible than my own. I'm missing the pollution in my own soul.
"According to Jesus, in our natural state we're unfit for the presence of God. Most modern people have a problem with this idea.... That's what we often say today. If there is a God we don't believe he is a trascendently holy deity before whom we stand guilty and condemned. And yet we still wrestle with profound feelings of guilt and shame. Where do they come from...?
"Though we've abandoned the ancient categories, we still have a profound, inescapable sense that if we were examined we'd be rejected. We have a deep sense that we've got to hide our true self or at least control what people know about us. Secretly we feel that we aren't acceptable, that we have to prove to ourselves and other people that we're worthy, lovable, valuable.
"Why do we work so very hard, always saying, 'If I can just get to this level, then I can relax'? And we never do relax once we get there - we just work and work. What is driving us? Why is it that some of us can never allow ourselves to disappoint anybody? We have no boundaries, no matter what people ask of us, how much they exploit us, trample on us, because to disappoint somebody is a form of death. Why does that possibility bother us so much? Where are all the self-doubts coming from? Why are we so afraid of commitment? ... 'You don't believe in sin, you don't believe in judgment, you don't believe in guilt - and yet you know somehow you're unclean.' You may psychologize it: I have a complex, my parents didn't love me enough, I'm a victim, I have self-esteem issues. But there's no escaping the fact that we all have a sense we're unclean....
"Jesus shows us why we can't shake that sense of uncleanness.... Jesus is saying: We are what's wrong. It's what comes out from the inside. It's the self-centeredness of the human heart. It's sin." (Keller, King's Cross)
'You were a select vine when I planted you from completely reliable stock. And look how you've turned out - a tangle of rancid growth, a poor excuse for a vine. Scrub, using the strongest soaps. Scour your skin raw. The sin-grease won't come out. I can't stand to even look at you!' God's Decree, the Master's Decree. (Jeremiah 2:22)
What do I do with this fact that I am unclean with a stain that won't come out, that I'm unfit for God's presence, that I'm doomed to trying to hide the pollution
inside me? How could I ever be clean?
How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
2 comments:
Amen. My heart is so dirty and sometimes I just let it continue to get dirtier, I'm realizing lately. I know it's dirty and I don't come to Jesus to wash me. I dont remember that it has been finished. That He has already made me right with God so that I could see the reality that He has already put on a new garment of praise on me, a robe of righteousness.
So I sit long in my guilt and shame. Then I feel guilty about that. What is it about this little heart of mine! Thankful God knows it, knows me inside and out and amazingly just loves and accepts me and reconciles me to Him! Grieving over my outpour of sin and the many unclean things from within that come out (I so often blame it on what goes in- circumstances, how others treat me, anything other than my sin really!). And coming back to the cross today.
Like David when He is confronted of his sin! Thankful for this example of a man after God's heart repentant over His dirty heart and hoping in God's power to change Him and acceptance in love.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails! Ps 51:10-12 MSG
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. NIV
Captivate me, Lord Jesus, with You.
This picture of the Pharisees cleaning that outside of their cup, but having a filthy, disgusting inside is convicting to me. Additionally, the reference to the Pharisees twisting the Law to their own means...focusing on "corban" - setting aside money for God - yet forsaking the needs of their own family - failing to honor their mother and father - challenges me. How often do I twist the Law to fit my own desires?
As our church is about to begin a churchwide fast, I am reminded that even as I pray about what to fast from, that is not what I put inside my body that makes me unclean, but what comes out of my body that makes me unclean. Anger, jealousy, joylessness, selfishness, pride, etc...these things make me unclean.
Lord, I pray, even as I move into a time of corporate fasting with my church that I would not be focused on what I am giving up...but that You would work on my character, the "inner cup", the evil that is within and makes me unclean. Remind me that I can't make myself more spiritual or holy by my actions, but that Jesus has to do it, fully and completely.
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