Jesus on Sin

Mark 7:1-23

1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
 but their hearts are far from me; 
7in vain do they worship me,
 teaching human precepts as doctrines.” 
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’
9Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— 12then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’
17When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

The Promise of Baptism

Galatians 3:23-29; John 2:13-22

23Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Sin's Consequences: Making Sense of our Pain and Disappointment

Jeremiah 2:19-32

19Your wickedness will punish you,
and your apostasies will convict you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.


20For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds, and you said, ‘I will not serve!’
On every high hill and under every green tree you sprawled and played the whore. 
21Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock.
How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine? 
22Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, says the Lord God. 
23How can you say, ‘I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done —
a restive young camel interlacing her tracks, 
24a wild ass at home in the wilderness,
in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her. 
25Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.’


26As a thief is shamed when caught,
so the house of Israel shall be shamed —
they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, 
27who say to a tree, ‘You are my father’,
and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their backs to me,
 and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Come and save us!’ 
28But where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble;
for you have as many gods
as you have towns, O Judah.


29Why do you complain against me? You have all rebelled against me, says the Lord. 
30In vain I have struck down your children; they accepted no correction.
Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion. 
31And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, ‘We are free,
we will come to you no more’? 
32Can a girl forget her ornaments,
or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me,
days without number.

Are You In Denial? (The Character of Sin)

Jeremiah 2:1-13, 19

1The word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord: I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. 3Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it were held guilty; disaster came upon them, says the Lord.

4Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5Thus says the Lord:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves? 6They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?’ 7I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. 8The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit.

9Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. 10Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. 11Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. 12Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, 13for my people have committed two evils:
 they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns that can hold no water.


19Your wickedness will punish you,
and your apostasies will convict you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.

Lenten Meditation

Isaiah 58:1-12

1Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. 3‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’ Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day, and oppress all your workers. 4Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today
 will not make your voice heard on high. 5Is such the fast that I choose,
 a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
 and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

6Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 
8Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. 9Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
 you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness
 and your gloom be like the noonday. 11The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden,
 like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. 
12Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.