Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.” One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (Lk.11:44-46)

In this chapter of the gospel of Luke Jesus continues to pronounce warnings and a call to repentance to the religious leaders of Israel. Jesus offers up a pointed description of these leaders by comparing them to unmarked graves that men step on without knowing what they have done.  The Jewish law pronounced anyone unclean who had come into contact with a dead animal or a dead human.  Death was connected with sin because that was the primary consequence of Adam’s sin.  After contact with the dead, an Israelite had to go though a period of separation and cleansing rituals to enter the community again or before coming into the temple area.  A Jew who stepped on an unmarked grave was suddenly unclean or defiled without knowing it.

In this section of Luke 11 Jesus pronounces a warning over these spiritual leaders because their hypocrisy not only was the antithesis of true spirituality but it also spiritually defiled those with whom they had contact.   In Matthew 16, Jesus warned his disciples to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” which was their teachings. Once again, these men looked spiritual and holy on the outside but on the inside they were full of greed, deceit, envy, and pride.  They were spiritually dead on the inside while having an appearance of godliness on the outside.  If that duplicity had affected only them it would have been enough for a warning but it also influenced others.

Those who came into contact with these Pharisees and these other experts in the law were defiled by their teachings.  These leaders had missed the whole point of the Law.  The function of the Law had never been to save a man through works but to convince a man that he could never do enough on his own to merit salvation. Paul tells in Galatians that the Law was a schoolmaster that was designed to point us to Christ. Every sacrifice for sin at the temple pictured the death of an innocent for the sins of another.  The Law, if understood correctly, underlined the need for a Savior because there was no end to the blood of bulls and goats.  Those sacrifices had to be offered perpetually. It was like a cancer treatment that could hold the cancer in check but never really cure it so that drugs have to be administered perpetually. When a person has been cured, treatments are no longer required. The blood of Christ was the cure – one sacrifice for all time.

The trouble with the teachings of the Pharisees was that it missed the point.  They kept the emphasis on what man could do rather than what God could do. Not only did they preach a meticulous keeping of the Law but they also added many of their own laws which made the burden even greater.  On top of that, Law keeping for salvation’s sake becomes a test.  Who does enough or who keeps the Law well enough to win salvation? If only the top 10% get into heaven, then you better make sure you are part of the top ten.  Because man, in his fallen state, cannot change the heart, the religious leaders of Israel disregarded the heart and emphasized what could be done in the flesh.  So they did mountains of religious things and in doing so developed a deep sense of self-righteousness and arrogance along with a profound disdain of the “unreligious.”  If your salvation depends on your personal righteousness, then you better see yourself as righteous or you won’t be able to live with the condemnation you feel. Many Christians are still burdened with condemnation because they too have a sense that their salvation is based on their worthiness rather than Christ’s.

The ordinary man who encountered these Pharisees would not only leave that encounter with the impression that God approved of pride and arrogance and a hunger for the praise of men but would also with a sense of condemnation about his own condition. Both of those responses imparted death rather than life. Right or wrong, most people look at believers and, especially, leaders in the church as an accurate representation of both God and his standards through our actions, attitudes and teaching.

Those who have no experience with the Father will assume that we represent Jesus and all that he stands for because we are their only experience with God.  They will not only assume that we represent the Lord accurately but if they are drawn to the Father they will begin to emulate our attitudes and behaviors because they will assume that we are what God wants us to be.  If we are, in fact, what the Father wants us to be then we will impart life to those who encounter us.  If we are far from what the Father wants us to be then we will impart death…as if they had stepped on a grave.

Here is what the Pharisees missed:

• God looks at the heart of a man not his appearance and certainly not the “appearance of godliness.”
• Salvation comes through no righteousness of our own but only through the grace of God.
• We don’t need a judge who keeps score of our “righteous acts” but a Savior who saves us from our sinful acts.
• God is not interested in ritual but in relationship. Religion in the sense of law keeping and rituals actually turns us away from the heart of God because it places the emphasis on us and what we can do rather than on him.

Jesus said to watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees.  Here is the thing. We all have a little Pharisee in us because our flesh or natural man leans in that direction.  At Passover the Jews had to purge their houses of all leaven and we need to do the same from time to time by scanning our own hearts for religious pretense, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, and any disdain we find for the “unreligious.”  If you think about it, Jesus apparently felt more at home with the “unreligious” than with the “religious” of his day.  I’m sure he still feels the same way. That’s something to think about. Be blessed today.