Again with the Questions! Again!

1. "Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper?" (Matthew 23:33) - Jesus is really letting the Pharisees have it. Still. It's crazy, it's relentless. It's also not good for the Pharisees. However, I have to wonder: can't they worm their way out of it? Isn't grace available to them as well? Or perhaps they have hardened their hearts against it and it's themselves that's in their own way. I guess all we can really know is that Christ has it out for the pretentiously religious, the faith facades.
   
2. "What is there left to say?" (Matthew 23:38) - Jesus is winding down here and evidently there's not a lot to say that hasn't been said before. As he puts it, through "prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation." So, not much, J, not much.
3. "You're not impressed by all this sheer size, are you?" (Matthew 24:2) - Right after Jesus finishes his diatribe his disciples start admiring the Temple's architecture. This leads into the infamous Matthew 24, a happy chapter with lots of good things happening (not really). Jesus does want us to remember, however, that the Temple is man-made and man-made things are not going to make it through. It's God's eternal stuff that will be around forever, and not coincedentally, the stuff that counts.