This Chapter starts with the Pharisees and scribes who had come from Jerusalem, who upon seeing some of his disciples eat with unwashed hands, asked him why his disciples did not walk according to the traditions.
This issues goes beyond their other issues concerning Jesus and his miracles. They considered it blasphemy that a rabbi would assert that a man has been forgiven, and their powerlessness had been publicly observed as he healed, and on the Sabbath to boot.
The event is helpful as it enables the Lord to show how far removed from his person their ways where. We also get a real window into the Pharisees and scribes, who neither lived founded and grounded upon the word of God alone, nor a living personal relationship with him, rather their strength within themselves, among themselves and for continuity was in their own traditions.
Having watched the ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ last night, you realize how powerful traditions are how they can keep a people distinct. I thought the play script was beautifully crafted, with the father managing change in the light of the truer interpretation of the text of scripture than his traditions had bore upon him. In this he was a true father to his daughters, who mirrored to them in measure He who formed Adam and Eve and bridged the old into the new, by the blood of his own dearly beloved sacrifice.
The messiah and saviour of his people is referred to, and shortly afterwards Roman soldiers too. Having been written in late 1890’s, for me it had an acknowledgment that perhaps already without having realized it God had been at work in a changing world, bridging the old and speaking new.
The closing scene has the Father blessing his third daughters gentile son in law and daughter, despite having broken him and his traditions, and the remaining members of family departing towards America, a land portrayed as one of promise but lacking in the benefits of good traditions – being a young child of a nation.
The Fiddler comes down from the roof, and exits with the rest, his music resonating the realities of a changing world with the true heart of the old being carried with the new. A fiddler not on a roof, is of great benefit to the whole fabric of family, society and global peace among men.
Here, Jesus who authored the inspiration of scripture shows how their traditions in this case actually took them away from the very heart of God, and the fabric of the foundations which brought health to humanity. Healings from Jesus, where a demonstration that he is the Word who brings health, health unto wholeness, wholeness within ones place within family and society. Not a distorted health of ‘I believe therefore I am’, that brought condemnation and great strain, but rather a health of a heart healed from not seeing the purity of God at work in a fallen world.
They had been teaching that giving unto the Pharisees and Scribes was a gift approved by God, that honored Father & Mother. In effect they were bypassing pensioners who may not have had a state pension in that era, to target the wage earners into funneling disposable income there way and not unto Father and Mother.
And have not the lush plains as the primary feeding grounds always deceived the seeker from seeing that relationships of faithfulness and purity never leave the seeker void of daily provision. Material gain and prosperity as the focus have they not always been interwoven with a sexual distortion from a blueprint of true health & wholeness.
The primary plains of mamre, a seeker of the alter of reconciliation into paradise lost. ‘For this my Son was dead & is alive again, was lost and is alive again’.
Jesus as a pure man, and one who cared passionately for the elderly and the very fabric of relationships. And the first relationship any human being born has starts with an intimate joining together of a man and his wife, and to dishonor ones Father & Mother was to completely misunderstand the very purpose for why you were born in the first place. The pure bonds of relationship are the very essence of life, and life more abundantly.
‘I must be about my Fathers business’, this meant the restoration of relationships according to Gods blueprint, and hence he grew in stature and favor with God and man.
The Pharisees and scribes, where communing with the Word of all creation, the source of all; astronomy, gravity, buoyancy, color, time, space and substance. Everything of ‘matter’ could only be seen through the light of his word, and Saul received his sight whence the notes of relationship resonated down his ear drums: Brother! A Pharisee of Pharisees, has seen a great light, and a Father unto the uncircumcised destined in the womb to ‘BE’. God speaks therefore I believe, relationship the paradigm of hearing by faith. God speaks that hearts may resonate, do not the mechanics of are ears teach us so.
‘You make void the word of God, by your tradition’. You take all the sound and sight away that Gods voice brings when you focus on personal material possessions rather that on the reproduction of the revelation, ‘blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah’. ‘That I might know him’, relationship the light of God voice when grace moves upon the great void.
It is not without divine order that Jesus opened a deaf man ears, and enables him to speak. Jesus who had formed them from clay, had never designed man for his works of labor to be the blessing. Had Adam understood the truth of his Fathers nature, he would have spoken plainly a covering word for all, a shared word of Grace for all humanity: Immanuel.
Adam, did not know ‘ONE’ thing about the knowledge of the tree of life. It was a goodness that far exceeded his own comprehension. It was a mystery ‘hidden’, yet to be revealed by the true Son of Promise unto Faithful Abraham: God shall provide himself a sacrifice!
One to bring a blessing, upon every nation and every family! Not a curse of labor of outward ritual.
Mark Ch 7 v21 – v 23. These are words that define a nature that has not come from God. Things, that came from a fall from that which was originally intended & does not the word place his finger right upon the very heart of the issue. This teacher, was unique above all others as his design his blueprint was the restoration of beauty, the harmony of heaven and the Glory of God, from whence man had fell.
Mark Ch 7 v 24. This is a profound verse in the light of all that has proceeded in the narrative of Mark, Ch 4 v21-23. Jesus entered a home and did not want it to be known.
I believe this has a dimension of his humanity within it. Jesus as fully man loved the comforts of intimate friendships, he was at home, being at home within one family without the need of the press pack and spotlight.
This great truth, of the comfort of a home, this was at the very heart of why he came to Abraham when he was guarding the entrance to his own tent! It was the blueprint he wanted to reproduce and shine outwards to the furthest corners of the earth, lights in the night guiding all who looked up unto the stable of Bethlehem.
Yet, he could not be hidden. What an example this gentile women was. Scripture does not note whether this daughters affliction had come from any of that stated preceding it, but what we do know, is that healing came to her own home, family and the next generation, through the correct hearing of faith. Her daughter, like Jesus wanting to stay unnoticed in this home, did not even move out of her bed, but was healed! Sovereign & supernatural, the Spirit of God, having moved over the darkness and void, his word brings deliverance and freedom the health for families at home and abroad.
Note:
I am at London this weekend, and am returning in the evening. I think I will be on catch up on the train back to Liverpool, as my companion here is having to catch a coach mid afternoon.
eternalrays 