Brushed your heart today?

Mark 7:1-23:

... the washings and efforts to stay clean and free from dirt and disease that were used by religious people in Jesus's day were a kind of visual aid that enabled them to recognise that they were spiritually and morally unclean and couldn't enter the presence of God unless there was some kind of spiritual purification. 

If you're going to meet up with somebody who is particularly important to you - for that big date or important job interview - you wash, you brush your teeth, you comb your hair. What are you doing? Getting rid of the uncleanness, of course. You don't want a speck or stain on you. ... The cleanliness laws were the same idea. Spiritually, morally, unless you're clean you can't be in the presence of a perfect and holy God. 

Jesus couldn't have agreed more with the religious leaders of his day about the fact that we are unclean before God, until for the presence of God. But he disagreed with them about the source of the uncleanness, and about how to address it.

[p 71-72 King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus]