Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 23, verses 37-39
When He entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and being greeted with raised palms and shouts of "Hosanna!", one could figure that Our Lord Jesus could have easily become the King of the Jewish people and would have lived a long life on the throne, guiding His people with His steady hand. In a certain sense, you would be correct, but as we know, His throne was not of this world. Yet, while the people hung on every word of Jesus with awe and amazement, the chief priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes did everything they could to throw a spanner into the works and prove the words of Jesus Christ to be a sham, a falsehood, and a canard. One by one, they lined up their questioning, and one by one He knocked them out of the park. You can sense that even a humble and holy man would have grown irritated at the situation, but Our Lord was not your typical humble and holy man. He was humble and holy, yes, but he was also true God and true man. So, yes, I believe our Lord was starting to grow thin on patience after the intense period of testing and questioning He was put through. Even He had to be thinking "what do I have to do. Father?"
Well, unlike you or I, who would have probably lost the plot by now, Our Lord responded by giving His most passionate sermon. He did not mince words.
Consider Matthew 23:2-12: "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens* [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."
So, He DOES acknowledge the authority of the scribes and the Pharisees. He gives them their due. They ARE people of authority as they are on the seat of Moses. It is only right and proper then to do what they outline for the faithful to do. Jesus then starts giving them a proverbial kick up the backside by telling everyone not to do as they do. You almost have to wonder what He was thinking when He came into Jerusalem and saw these men, these leaders of the faith community, doing their best to be seen, to stick out in the crowd. He had to be thinking "Goodness, these rabbis, it seems like they have forgotten why they are here. They should be ministering to the faithful, but instead they seem to be more interested in power and prestige. What has happened to them? This has got to change." Obviously the scribes and the Pharisees seemed to be a lot like modern day politicians, more interested in money and power as opposed to helping the people. So, Our Lord tells them to be exalted, they need to humble themselves and take on the form of servants. A simple, but bold and powerful message.
Was Our Lord finished in His diatribe? Oh no, He continued to speak of His displeasure towards the Pharisees and scribes. So, if you ever feel like it is wrong to be angry, recall how Our Lord felt when He saw what the chief priests in Jerusalem were doing to His Father's faith! This was divine anger, righteous anger! It is as if God came to Earth Himself and gave the Pharisees and scribes a piece of His mind...oh wait, He did in the form of Jesus Christ. So yes, He DID come to Earth to put these leaders of the faithful into line. Matthew 23:13-36: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven* before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’ Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’ You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it; one who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it; one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who is seated on it. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes* of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. “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! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation."
I can't really elaborate on that, other than it is quite obvious that Our Lord is pretty upset with the scribes and Pharisees! Before He spoke this passage, you can bet His thoughts were like "Look at you. You scribes and Pharisees think you are so holy, so perfect, and so powerful. You think that those who came before you were the fools, but I see the fools right in front of me. Listen to what I am saying, because your ministry and your soul depends on it. You are heading down a very dark path." Yet, I do not think the anger Our Lord felt was with malice. On the contrary, I think He said what He did out of love. Tough love, but love none the less. We can relate to that nowadays, when we deal with bad priests, ministers, or clergy. When we see an abuse of the liturgy or another practice of the faith being done incorrectly, we have a duty to our faith to speak out, but with love and concern. We love our priests and we want them to be the best! So, don't be afraid to call someone out when they are doing wrong.
Then, it seems almost that Our Lord has given up in Matthew 23:37-39 "“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned, desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” He sounds just like a parent who has told their child again and again to stop doing something, but they remain ignorant, so He gives them a stern warning for Jerusalem to mend its ways. Jesus, though, has not "given up". If anything, Jerusalem has given up.
Some of you may say to me "Hey, you skipped over a lot of great parables and other parts of his preaching." Correct, but if I went into every part of his public ministry during His final days, this entry would take a month to write. So, I am doing my best to hit upon moments where I can focus on Jesus and His humanity and His emotions. Please bear with me. We will soon be entering the Upper Room to observe the Passover between Jesus and The Twelve. But before that, after the public verbal flogging that Our Lord had given the chief priests and scribes, they were not exactly happy with this stranger just waltzing in and bringing rain down on their parade. Once again, who does he think he is? This guy is a threat to us and our way of life. We like things just the way they are. We need to deal with this problem once and for all.
Soon, the chief priests found an unlikely ally in their want to rid themselves of Jesus and his "blasphemy"...one of the Twelve, one of Jesus's chosen, Judas Iscariot. Matthew 26:14-17: "Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,* went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over." However, many biblical scholars and historians believe that it was more than the promise of money that caused Judas to betray Our Lord. It is widely believed that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus because Our Lord was not the Messianic King of the Old Testament who would overthrow the tyranny of Roman rule. I am trying to imagine myself in Judas's position here, so please forgive me. Imagine yourself a young man, growing up on the teachings of the elders, and reading in the sacred texts that one day, a king will come. For years, you wait and wait. Then, a man arrives who seems to be coming in power, with knowledge and wisdom. You follow him, thinking he is the one that will lead you and your kin out of bondage. You witness miracles that you would not believe if you had not seen them with your own eyes. You anticipate the day that he will take up the sword and lead a rebellion, but that day never comes. You start to grow weary of his preaching and his words because they are not leading to action. Soon, you decide that he is not the Messiah that you have been told would come, so you decide to turn him in for being a fraud, a blasphemer. I think that is the mindset that Judas had when he betrayed Jesus. I also think that, when we decide to sin, we all develop that mindset, we think we know better than Our Lord so we decide to betray Him.
Well, no matter what drove Judas to betrayal, the chief priests finally had a mole within The Twelve that would help them win the day and rid them of Jesus. If Our Lord were just an ordinary man, they would be right. Our Lord was on to the whole plot right from the word go, not to save His own skin, but because He needed to be. The Passover had begun, and a Passover lamb was needed, and Jesus was that Lamb.
In the next segment of my reflection, we will consider the Upper Room, the arrest of Our Lord, and His Passion on Calvary. I truly hope you are enjoying my reflection on Holy Week. God bless you all.
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