And when He later entered a house, away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about the parable. And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding as well? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the person from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thereby He declared all foods clean.)
When we are sick, we first can tell because of the symptoms we start to feel, whether it is a headache, fever, or nausea. When we focus on making the symptoms go away, we take medicine and keep moving about in our regular lives. When we focus on recovering from the illness, we take extra time to rest or look into what’s causing our sickness. We can only treat symptoms for so long because we aren’t actually dealing with the root problem.
In this passage, Jesus had to reiterate to His disciples the parable He’d just taught because the problem of sin had been dealt with symptomatically for so long. They focused so much on the actions and the external factors they could fix and measure instead of taking time to pursue God and figure out what was happening in their hearts. Processes and procedures were given for eating, living, and worshiping God, but Jesus created a new covenant that not only dealt with the symptoms of brokenness but healed the heart itself.
Sometimes that’s a much bigger work than we want God to do. We want Him to help us in our current situation, but we don’t want to leave behind the sinful ways we have become accustomed to. We want Him to heal the hurt we feel, but we would rather figure out the problem ourselves instead of trusting Him with it. This way of heart healing feels so foreign to us, just like it was confusing to the disciples, yet this is who we were designed to be: people dependent on our Creator, made alive in Him alone. In our confusion and questions, He is our bold comforter who heals our heart wounds, graciously beckons us in deeper relationship with Him, and shows us the new way forward.
- What are some sin symptoms you try to fix yourself? Why is it difficult to take these to God?
- What does it look like to allow God to do the heart work inside of us?
- Pray for the global church that every believer would open his or her heart to be healed by God instead of trying to treat the symptoms on his or her own.
