Let’s face it – religious ceremonies are attractive, whatever form they take. From clutching a rabbit’s foot or wearing a rally cap to turning a prayer wheel or lighting a candle in a temple, It is a pleasant fiction to go through certain rituals, imagining that they have the power to protect us or make us prosperous.

That was certainly the case for many of the Jews of Paul’s day, to whom he is writing in today’s passage. Their religion had deteriorated to the point where many were putting their faith, not in God, but in performing the ceremonies prescribed by the Law: being circumcised, or offering sacrifices in the Temple.

And let’s face it – many modern Christians have fallen into a similar sort of ceremonialism. We might think that we are good people because we have been baptized or because we take the Lord’s Supper regularly. We might rely on the fact that we attend public worship every week, or the fact that we put a tenth of our income in the offering plate. However good these things may be in themselves, it is so easy to put our trust in our good deeds instead of in Christ alone.

That’s why Paul challenges all of us to put a priority on substance instead of ceremony. He reminds us that being circumcised or being baptized can’t replace keeping the essence of the Law of God – loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. No matter how carefully we observe the outward forms and ceremonies of religion, if we aren’t trusting Christ as our savior and living out our salvation in love, none of those ceremonies will do us any good.

And that brings us to Paul’s second challenge – to focus more on the heart than on the actions. What really matters is not the physical action of baptism but the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit to which those outward waters point. It is only a pure heart that expresses itself in deeds of love and mercy that earns the praise of God – for unless we truly love God and others, all our outward piety is merely hypocrisy.

So today, let us seek to do the right things, but only for the right reason. And let us pray that God would cleanse our hearts by His Holy Spirit that we might truly love Him and others as He has called us to do.

Romans 2:25-29 (NAS)

25 For indeed circumcision is of value, if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 If therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
27 And will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.