March 20 | Third Sunday of Lent | Defiled
Read Mark 7:1-23
Unclean. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were concerned with purity laws. They tried to keep all the laws set down in Torah, and even added more laws to it to make extra sure they didn’t violate any commandment. To make sure they weren’t unclean.
When Jesus came on the scene, he showed people that what makes a person “clean” or “unclean” has to do not with following a bunch of external rules, but with what is in a person’s heart.
This is the longest section in Mark of an opposition to Jesus from the religious leaders. In this long section, Mark wants to show his readers that Jesus can produce the inner transformation that the law requires but cannot affect.
In the season of Lent, we take time to examine our hearts, to ask God to show us the true state of our insides. To ask Him to make our hearts clean.
Today, take some time to meditate on and pray Psalm 139:23-24. See what God gently lifts to the surface.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.