Wash your hands before supper!

In Mark 7, the Pharisees approach Jesus with the issue of ceremonial hand-washing before eating. They asked Jesus why his disciples weren’t following their Jewish traditions. Their claim was that God ordained this tradition for the sake of moral purity along with all the other cleanliness laws. Garland suggests that the Pharisees were seeking for Jesus and his disciples to remain in their pious traditions. They were afraid of losing their circle of influence, and Jesus was threatening just that. But Jesus understood that purity was not held in matters of practice but of the heart. He knew that the Pharisees were only washing their hands because they were in the habit of doing it and only did it for the sake of doing it. However, Jesus later explained to his disciples that purity is determined by what comes out rather than what goes in. We often wash our hands just because we are accustomed to doing it. We pray at meals because we just do. We go to church because it’s a habit. What is the real reason for those things made a practice in the first place?

Zach Pyron