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| Whiter than this |
but do not follow their example.
Jesus, why do you make us learn your law through the mediation of imperfect people? It is seems harder when someone tells us, "Do this!" but won't himself embrace it. If your way really leads us to "eat the good things of the land" then why isn't there greater consistency of life and message? If your law truly brings happiness than why do your teachers sometimes fail to embody it?
Yet you teach us genuine truth through these teachers. You teach us how to be good. But at the same time we learn that there is none good but one, that is, God (cf. Mar. 10:18). Neither the teaching nor the knowing is going to justify wide phylacteries, long tassels, places and seats of honor, or special greetings and salutations.
Sometimes seeing flaws in the teachers of your will just hardens our hearts LORD Jesus. But your plan is that the humility of learning through flawed individuals should protect us from ourselves becoming prideful about what we know. It can make is alert to the danger of being hearers of the law but not doers.
You are showing us how to be clean from the inside out, to be white as wool. You are exposing the ways in which we focus on externals and forget about justice, about the orphan, and the widow, the ways in which our sins are crimson red. But you expose us not in order to condemn us. You reveal this to us in order to call us back to yourself. Even if we are already washed you invite us to come to you so that you can clean from our feet the accumulation of the miles we walk in this life (cf. Joh. 13:10).
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
LORD, make us good students as you teach and correct us. You want to show us your saving power. We might be getting a lot of the external piece correct but maybe not entirely for the right reasons. Maybe our hearts are not completely yours. We sometimes seek your law, but not always for your sake. You want to reveal this to us. It feels like condemnation but you don't want to condemn us. You come to the world to save it, not to condemn it (cf. Joh. 3:17). You don't want to see us resist because you don't want to consume us with sword. Your word is precise. It is "living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart." It is performing a delicate surgery on our hearts. If we thrash from side to side it might feel like condemnation. It might feel like being consumed by the sword. But the purpose of this surgery is healing. You promise our hearts can be new again.
Come now, let us set things right,
says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
LORD reveal the parts of our hearts where we are Pharisees. Reveal any subconscious images of ourselves as spiritual masters generously ministering the gift of, not your law, but ourselves to your people. Teach us where we seek honor and not righteousness.
Reveal the parts of our hearts that are bad students. If we use the messengers to excuse ourselves from obedience, show us this. If we are interested in being students to boost our own self-image then the teachers who refuse to practice what the preach in order to protect and nourish their own pride are anathema to us. But if you show us how to humbly submit to the truth you reveal we grow and progress no matter how imperfect the teacher.
Even through Pharisees you show us your saving power and teach us to offer the sacrifice of praise which you desire.
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