Jesus said,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.
Even so, on the outside you appear righteous,
but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You build the tombs of the prophets
and adorn the memorials of the righteous,
and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,
we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’
Thus you bear witness against yourselves
that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets;
now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.
These are what we call fighting words. Jesus is making enemies in this chapter. This whole chapter 23, consists of 8 statements of woe to the scribes and pharisees. He calls them blind guides and vipers. This chapter is one of the most insulting statements that jesus ever makes toward the pharisees. Messages like this, make it easy to see to understand why the pharisees, wanted to kill Jesus, and He even prophesied that result at the end of this reading when He says “now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”
But imagine being a layperson during this time, living under the tyranny of the law of the Pharisees. It must have been shocking (and maybe even refreshing) to see a man go against the entire power structure of their time. But the faithful jew (and Pharisee) would also have known the prophecy and (should have) recognized Jesus as messiah.
So why did the Pharisees torture and kill him instead. For the same reason that Satan fell, Pride! These jewish leaders knew that when the Lord returned, everything would change. Jesus said as much in his preaching. He said the first will be last, and the last will be first. The pharisees were usurpers, they were not of the line of Levi, and they had no right to oversee the temple, they were put in power by the romans, and the corrupt Herod, and their hold on power was tenuous at best. They did not want the status quo to change in any way.
Further, these pharisees, knew that to follow Jesus, they would have to give up their power, and prestige, and comfortable lives, and instead, they would have to serve… and just like satan, they said that they would not do that, and so the inevitable happened, they tried to destroy the one person that stood in their way. But in fact they ended up exalting him above all men.
To me the the jews of this time acted exactly the way that I would expect powerful people to act, what boggles my mind is that there are jews today that still think that Jesus was just a man. But that is a different reflection. But todays message is simple, and speaks directly to us. The outside world does not defile us, we are instead defiled by our sinful nature, what is inside us, and by the choices that we make. So we must repent our sins, and then seek first to change ourselves from the inside out.
Oh lord, please give me the wisdom and understanding that i need to identify what inside me is defiled, and keeping me from you, and help me to change and cleanse that sin from my life. Amen.
