Divine Dining March 20, 2026 Devotional

LUKE 11:47-48 | ⁴⁷ Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. ⁴⁸ So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

Tradition is a necessary gift. All the words, for instance, which we use to describe the world and grasp our experience in it, were given to us from the past. Our new experiences, fresh experiments, and novel ideas would be impossible without this inheritance.

But there is a danger with rigid adherence to a tradition—for it can blind us to the truth as well as revealing it. Jesus points out a terrible irony. The very prophets now honored as speakers of God’s truth to Israel, were rejected on the basis of inflexible traditions. The lawyers who honor them now were preceded by similar figures who dishonored, persecuted, and murdered them. The pattern repeats with Jesus, whose fresh divine words are dismissed, once more in defense of traditions relating to Sabbath or food laws for instance. If this current generation of religious leaders rejects the true Messiah, they are repeating the mistakes of the past. True traditionalists are open to new truth as well as old truth, to innovation as well as continuity.

Do you value traditions? Are you open to change?

Gracious God,

You set patterns to be followed, but You also do the new and unexpected. Show me what to hold onto and what to let go of. I ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.