"Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God"
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 20-23
9/17/06
It seems a little odd to label this mornings Gospel
text Gospel at all, since theres not one word of Gospel in it. We
hear no words of comfort from Jesus, no words of forgiveness, nothing
about Jesus taking our sins upon Himself, nothing about His sacrifice
on the cross for us; in fact, nothing that would suggest any hope of
salvation for us at all. We get a little Gospel from the O.T.
lesson where Moses tells us that the LORD our God is near to us when we
call on Him, but the rest of his words have to do with obeying Gods
commandments. We might look to the epistle lesson for today,
which actually contains the word salvation, but the context in which it
appears is an admonition from the Apostle Paul to prepare ourselves for
battle against the forces of evil. So, theres seems to be very
little Gospel for us today from the Word of God. Not only do we
hear words of Law from Moses, but Jesus Himself here sounds like
Moses. In fact, Hes worse than Moses, because at least under
Moses you could outwardly obey the commandments and still be considered
a good citizen in the community. Jesus, however, makes it clear
that no matter how good you appear outwardly, your heart is corrupt
with sin, and so you stand defiled before God.
Theres no candy coating these words. Jesus has
caught us. He has captured us like a lion with its prey and
crushed all our bones. Forget the enemies that Paul warns us
about. Here God is our enemy, or more than that, we are His
enemies, battling against Him and His will on a daily basis as our
hearts spew forth evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders,
adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy,
slander, pride and foolishness. It doesnt matter that were good
citizens. Were bad people from the heart, and this affects all
our good deeds and righteous living, so much so that, as Isaiah says,
all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags before God. I just
love it when people want to talk about giving their hearts to
Jesus. Considering what kind of a heart we have, according to
Jesus, would He want such a heart? And could we give it to Him
anyway, when the problem is the heart itself?
You see, Jesus here takes away any attempt on our
part to cleanse our own hearts by showing us just how corrupt they
are. Theyre just as corrupt as the hearts of the Pharisees were,
who didnt think they were corrupt, but put themselves forward as the
most religious and upright people. And yet, theirs was a
self-invented righteousness. They werent even obeying Gods Law;
they were obeying their own laws and traditions, even putting them over
Gods Law. This may have been because they thought they had
already kept Gods laws and they wanted to move beyond them, or because
their own self-chosen laws were easier to keep than Gods laws.
Either way, the corruption of their hearts was manifest. Setting
aside Gods laws and setting up their own was sin and so was their
failure to keep Gods laws. And we are no better. We too
have our own self-chosen works, which we think look very righteous and
are easier to keep than Gods commandments, and we even think weve done
a pretty good job at keeping most of Gods commandments - at least
outwardly.
But Gods Law doesnt show us that we can keep
it. It doesnt show us how to keep it or even offer us any help in
keeping it. And it doesnt give us any hope of salvation. It
shows us how defiled our hearts are and it condemns us for it.
Even when we do seem to keep the commandments outwardly, the judgment
that we are defiled and therefore havent kept them perfectly always
stands over us. Jesus gets at the heart of the Law here by
revealing whats in our hearts. The Pharisees thought of sin
quantitatively - as if the less you sinned, the more righteous youd
be. But Jesus removes the veil, so to speak, and reveals just how
corrupt we are in our hearts. When youre as corrupt as Jesus says
you are, you cant give Him anything, you cant do anything from a pure
heart, you cant clean up your heart yourself and offer it to Jesus, you
cant make yourself acceptable to God in any way. Even your
attempts at living as a good person either leads to arrogance and pride
over and against other people who arent as good as you, or you end up
doing what you do to avoid Gods punishment and wrath or because you
hope to get something like a reward from Him. According to Jesus,
there is nothing good within us. Jesus shows us here both the
depths of the depravity of our hearts and the futility of trying to
clean them up ourselves. He does this in order to bring us to the
realization that we have a problem, and that problem is us! We
are the problem. We are sinners through and through. We
cant save ourselves. We cant help ourselves. We cant even
contribute in any way to our salvation. We are not our own
saviors. We need the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Im reminded here of what some of my seminary
professors taught about how to preach a text like this one from Mark
where there appears to be no Gospel. They said you have to import
the Gospel. In other words, since the text has no apparent Gospel
in it, you have to add it yourself, because youre not just going to
preach on the Law. If we did that, wed either end up in despair
with no hope of salvation, or wed go about like these Pharisees
thinking that we could actually keep Gods commandments. God
doesnt want the Law to be the last words of His that we hear.
Thats why He sent Jesus. We have to remember whos speaking
here. Its Jesus, our Savior. Hes the Gospel in this
text. Hes the one who would die on the cross for our sins and
sprinkle our hearts with His blood, cleansing them in the waters of our
Baptism. This is the word He wants to end His sermons with.
First He has to reveal our condition, our problem, which is sin, with
His words of Law. He has to show us that our hearts are so
defiled with sin that theres no hope in trying to cleanse them
ourselves, in order that we wont try to become our own saviors.
Once He has caused us to despair of cleaning up our hearts ourselves,
then He proclaims the Gospel to us. He points us to Himself, who
alone can clean up our hearts. Just as David prays in Psalm 51,
so we sing in the offertory following the sermon: Create in me a
clean heart, O God... and Jesus does just that.
And He doesnt just stop with your heart. He
cleanses you heart and soul, body and spirit. As completely
depraved, defiled, and unclean as you are, you have a complete
Savior. Jesus is no partial Savior; He doesnt just clean up part
of you. He cleans the whole you. While were busy trying to
act righteous, Jesus gives us His righteousness. All these evil
things our hearts are producing He took upon Himself as if they were
His own, while He gives His purity and holiness to us. Jesus
heart alone is undefiled. He alone could render unto God perfect
obedience to the commandments. And He alone could render the
perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins - Himself, crucified on a
cross. So He became defiled with your sin, so that you might be
made holy with His righteousness.
Having taken your defilement upon Himself on the
cross, He washed and cleansed your hearts through Baptism, where He
also clothed you with Himself and His righteousness. Now you
stand before God no longer defiled but completely righteous in His
eyes. Do evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, etc. still
proceed from our hearts? Yes, and on a daily basis, too.
This should remind us that in and of ourselves we are still
sinners. It should remind us, too, that even our good works are
still tainted with sin. We never do what we should do perfectly
or with pure motives - out of love for God and love for our
neighbor. But your sins no longer defile you. They are no
longer counted against you. Jesus has cleansed you of all
unrighteousness through the waters of your Baptism, which continues to
have its way with you drowning the lusts of your heart, washing away
your sins, and giving you new life in Jesus. Not only that but
Jesus continues to forgive you your sins and feed you on His body and
blood. Because of all this, God no longer sees your sin and the
weakness that is attached to your good works. He sees you as
holy, He sees your heart cleansed with the blood of Jesus, and He sees
your good works as fruits of faith in Jesus, resulting from the work of
the Holy Spirit in your life. Christians, now, dont bother
themselves with how many good works theyre doing or how good those
works are, because they have Christs righteousness and His good works
given to them. No one can improve on that. So, Christians
dont do their good works for themselves; they dont need them.
They dont look for some kind of reward for doing good works; Jesus is
their reward. They dont do their good works for God; He doesnt
need them. Nor do they do their good works to show off.
They dont take credit for their good works; they give all the glory to
God. Instead, Christians do their good works for those around
them who are in need.
This is why the Lord has given each of you vocations
- stations in life - through which He works in you and through you to
provide for the needs of your neighbor. Spouses love and honor
one another. Children obey their parents and other
authorities. Employees serve their bosses and their
customers. Employers even serve those who work for them along
with their customers. Christians love, forgive, and serve one
another and speak the Gospel to those around them. And all of
this service, done through faith in Jesus Christ, God considers true
and pure worship. That is, when we trust in Jesus Christ for our
salvation and serve one another out of love, we are serving God.
This is what a heart does thats been cleansed by Jesus. It begins
to die to its lusts and to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.
The Pharisees in todays Gospel lesson believed that
a person was defiled by eating food without first ceremonially washing
ones hands. But Jesus makes it clear that its not what you eat
that defiles you, nor are you defiled because you have broken the laws
of men, but you are defiled because of what comes from your defiled
heart and because you have broken the laws of God. As Jesus puts
it, its not what goes into you but what comes out of you that defiles
you. And so we are led to confess that each one of us is defiled
in our bodies and souls before God, and we cannot cleanse ourselves; it
would be like trying to clean dirty dishes with dirty water. But
Jesus cleanses you Himself. While its not the things that go into
you that defile you, Jesus does put something into you that purifies
you, and that is Himself. The food He gives you - His body and
His blood - cleanses your hearts as Jesus continues what He began at
your Baptism. And so the most worthy participants at His Table
are those who confess that they are defiled on account of their sin and
are in need of Christs body and blood which He gives you in this Supper
for the cleansing of your hearts.
Jesus is for sinners; He creates clean hearts in
sinners by washing them in His blood. Be cleansed by Him again
today and rejoice in His righteousness given to you. Amen.