Matthew 23:27-28 — Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

The house painting was finished today. The results are beautiful — but I’m not hear to brag on the paint job, or even our wonderful painters. It’s something about the process they followed that reminded me of Jesus’s comment about whited sepulchers.
We don’t have a big house. Even so, some weather delays and the thoroughness of the process, the job took more than a week. First the walls were power washed. Next, all the hairline cracks had to be spackled. After the spackling a sealant was applied. Finally, the walls got two coats of paint — and in some places three. Our house has been painted, and it’s going to look good for ten years.
The sepulchers Jesus was talking were where the poor folk got buried. They were by the roadside or in the fields, not carved out of solid rock like the tombs of the rich.
It’s notable that Jesus saw these sepulchers close to Passover. If He had seen them at another time they would not have been white and bright. Every year, close to the Passover, they were whitened with powdered lime dust. They got an annual clean-up, so that travelers on the way to Jerusalem could see them and avoid being made ceremonially unclean for a week by touching them. As Jesus noted, they might look nice on the outside but on the inside they were full of corruption.
I wasn’t really put in mind of the bones inside the tombs today. What came to my mind was the depth of the cleaning process. There are those who become Christians and their lives are completely turned around. The cleaning is not skin deep! Then there are others who really don’t seem to change that much — it’s like they just get the powdered lime treatment, it soon washes off, and after a while you can’t tell that they’re Christians at all!
It maybe, though, that the whitewashed sinners who gradually fade are not the worst. After all, Jesus was calling out the Pharisees. They were supposed to be the most righteous of the righteous but even the Jews themselves had their doubts. An ancient old oral tradition listed seven sorts of Pharisees. Two were wonderful — “God fearing like Job and God loving like Abraham”. The others though were:
— The “shoulder Pharisee,” who wears his good actions ostentatiously upon his shoulder
–The “wait-a-little Pharisee,” who ever says, “Wait a little, until I have performed the good act awaiting me”
— The “bruised Pharisee,” who in order to avoid looking at a woman runs against the wall so as to bruise himself and bleed
— The “pestle Pharisee,” who walks with head down like the pestle in the mortar
— The “ever-reckoning Pharisee,” who says, “Let me know what good I may do to counteract my neglect”
I reckon you can find all these people in churches today. So when you meet someone who looks pretty good, by all means check the paint job … But remember, in the end, it’s the fruit that proves the tree.