“Jesus said, ‘Just so, you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright, but inside you are ful l of pretence and lawlessness and iniquity.’” (Matthew 23:28)
Jesus exposed people who had a form of godliness or respectability, yet were filled with selfish agendas or evil intent, that included some who were amongst the Jewish hierarchy. The ‘Chasidim’ (‘pious ones’), one of the two groups who rebelled against Antiochus Epiphanes (which Jewish people are reminded of in the upcoming feast of Hanukah) and who later became the forerunners of the Pharisees, had a reputation for maintaining a high level of spirituality. However, by the First Century AD, this had sadly degenerated into a hollow shell of the original. We see the same thing happened with movements of God throughout Church history. Leonard Ravenhill, the great Twentieth Century revivalist, made an astute observation relating to God’s timings: “Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows up Himself.”
Spiritual renewal is linked to the measure in which we cooperate with God. Yet, He occasionally surprises us (as Ravenhill noted) by showing up despite everything, even as He did when at the perfect moment in the fullness of time with the first advent of Jesus. And, it will be the same with His second advent.
Jesus rocked the religious status quo and sent shock waves throughout Jewish orthodoxy. It is important to understand the context here: it was common in rabbinic tradition to openly discuss other peoples’ failures, and rabbis readily debated them. Yet, here we find something fundamentally different. Jesus employed rabbinic structures common to the day in his manner of conversation and teaching, but took them to an unprecedented level. He was unequivocal in his denunciation of religious hypocrisy from amongst those who were its custodians.
Jesus’ words were offensive to those He exposed, particularly when they were primarily addressed to the very people who were quick to point fingers at others. Then again, who would not be offended? We can all probably recall occasions when a strong word of truth was spoken into our lives that revealed weakness rather than strength? Did we react with resentment or denial, rather than allowing God’s words to bring healing and personal renewal? This is amusingly portrayed in the following story.
In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked,
‘Mrs. Jones, do you know me?’
She responded,
‘Why, yes, I do know you, Mr Williams. I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realise you’ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.’
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked,
‘Mrs. Jones, do you know the defence attorney?’
She again replied,
‘Yes, I do. I’ve known Mr Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.’
The defence attorney nearly died.
The judge asked both counsellors to approach the bench and in a very quiet voice said,
‘If either of you fools asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to the electric chair.’
There is no neutrality in the Kingdom of Heaven. This is something we are reminded of as we enter the ninth month in the Jewish calendar, the month of Kislev. Nine in Scripture symbolises judgment and finality, and there is a positive as well as a negative element to this. We also see that concealed within this number is its square root represented by the number three, speaking of divine perfection. We all need to get back to the square root of nine, which symbolically suggests the idea of completeness—beginning, middle, end: the Alpha and Omega.
