Lipstick on a Pig

 

To put "lipstick on a pig" is a rhetorical expression, used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product. This world focuses hard on the outward appearance of an individual but sometimes those appearances are but vain attempts at hiding what is really in the heart. In speaking to the scribes and the Pharisees, Jesus uses a sharp word to call attention to a major problem exhibited by those spiritual leaders – hypocrites.

 

Not once, but seven times in Matthew chapter twenty-three does Jesus refer to the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. In calling them hypocrites, Jesus is saying that their outward appearance didn’t line-up with their teaching. Further he accuses them of cleaning the outside of the cup but neglecting the inside and in so doing they have made the cup useless for the purpose for which it was created.

 

What Jesus is saying is, they have put lipstick on a pig and he has seen through the makeup and knows the heart. I wonder if we, as followers of Jesus, ever try and cover over the inadequacies of our lives by putting up a good front. We like the Pharisees are merely whitewashed tombs that hold nothing but dead men’s bones.

 

Are we beautiful on the outside, but ugly within?

 

Let me give you some good news – Jesus died for the sin of hypocrisy too. As it is in the closing verses of Matthew twenty-three so it is in the here and now, Jesus desires to draw us near and the best cure for hypocrisy is to come near to Jesus ask forgiveness, and start living outwardly what you really believe inside.