PerryDox – BeJustAChristian

If disturbing but true, biblically based, analogies distress you, do not read this article.  Now that I’ve said that…my guess is that EVERYONE will read it!

All of us have seen it done.  None of us will actually directly do it to ourselves, although most of us will have it planned to be done to us.  Knowing why it is done still does not remove the irony, silliness, and downright weirdness of the whole setting.  Personally, I know why we do it, so please do not take the following to be disrespectful or distasteful.  What am I talking about?  Taking a comfortably lined, cushioned, beautifully detailed, air-tight, expensive…”bed” – putting a corpse in it and burying it six feet under the ground never to be seen again! That’s what a casket is, isn’t?  Isn’t it a “dead-bed?”  And don’t forget that we take that same embalmed – yet still slowly decaying – body and put it in a nice, personally favorite or new outfit.  I know why we do it – just like the entire funeral and everything connected to it – we do it for the living, not the dead.  It makes us feel good inwardly.  But more to the point, outwardly we are trying to cover up and beautify the reality – death and decay.  And that is the central theme of this lesson.

 Unsettling, isn’t it…that first paragraph!  It borders on being tasteless and tacky.  But read on.

 Caskets – beautiful on the outside; rottenness on the inside.  Does that remind you of anything anyone else said?  Jesus blasted the scribes and Pharisees for being religious “tombs”:

• Matthew 23:27-28 – [27] “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. [28] “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

 Jesus said that on the Tuesday prior to His crucifixion.  On the day before Jesus gave this scathing rebuke to the Jewish Leaders, He performed two symbolic acts teaching the same lesson visually.  Jesus cursed a fig tree and cleansed the temple.  Both appeared one way outwardly, but the reality was very different.

• Mark 11:12-14 – [14] On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. [13] Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. [14] He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening.
• Mark 11:15-17 – [15] Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; [16] and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. [17] And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.” (Jer.7:11)

 One has to wonder – considering this is the last week of Jesus – if there is more than only a chronological connection between these three events?

• A fig tree with leaves should have fruit – but it only gave the outward appearance of being what it should be (surprisingly figs trees often bear fruit before sprouting leaves).
• A temple should be filled with worshippers – not a carnival of sellers – it gave the outward appearance of being a place of worship, but inwardly it was filled with filth.
• Religious leaders should not outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly (be) full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Mt.23:29)

 All three condemn the same sin – hypocrisy; projecting on the outside the ideal contrary to the reality found on the inside; appearance versus reality.

 We can see a vivid example of this outward appearance versus inward reality by looking at the would-be worship leaders within the temple.  According to John 11:55-57, …the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves.  The week prior to Passover was for cleansing oneself ceremonially.  Hmmm, that is the same week Jesus cleansed the temple!  Just a coincidence I am sure, so I digress.  There is no doubt in my mind, due to their pretentiousness, that this ceremonial cleansing included the religious leaders too!  After all they would cleanse themselves everyday (Mark 7:3-4).  These religious fakes were the same ones profiting by the “filth” inside the temple that Jesus cleansed!  And yet these same religious leaders were seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching (Mark 11:18).  Apparently there is a difference between being religious and being spiritual!  Which are we?  Are we like them, ceremonially pure on the outside; rotten on the inside?  Are we attending church, but inwardly filled with bitterness, jealousy, or anger?  Jesus threw out the physical filth, but the religious filth pretended to be clean.  Even after the religious leaders had arrested Jesus and unscripturally and illegally tried Him, these holy pretenders would not enter into the Roman Praetorium to talk to Pilate so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover (John 18:28).  Pilate had to come out to meet them.  So pure, so holy, so hypocritical…so dead and decaying.

 Jesus uttered a similar thought to a church too!  “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead (Revelation 3:1).

 But this lesson is not just about the Pharisees, scribes, and Christians in Sardis, is it?  It is also about us.

•  Does it help to purify our outward actions if our inward motives are impure?
• Does it help to dress up on Sunday on the outside but inwardly be unforgiving and gossipy?
• Does it help to come to all the services if we do so because we are bound to tradition instead of bound to Jesus? 

Does it help?  The answer is…of course it helps!  It helps cover up what we are on the inside – dead and decaying.  And folks that is a true, biblically based analogy – that is distressing and unsettling.   Let Jesus cleanse the filth within.

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This entry was posted by PHall on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Matthew, Mark, John, Revelation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.