Read

Isaiah 1:1-20

… learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.
Isaiah 1:17

Reflect

Back in the 1980s, a routine on “Saturday Night Live” poked fun at that obsession. Billy Crystal played a talk show host named Fernando who repeatedly told his guests, “You look … mahvelous!” Fernando was hilariously fascinated with outward beauty, but the joke worked because there was plenty of truth behind it.

More than 40 years later, we may be even more determined to look “mahvelous.”

We worry about whether we’re too pale or too heavy, whether our hair looks right, whether our clothes are fashionable, whether our noses are too large or our lips too thin. There always seems to be something that can be colored, tightened, reshaped, lifted or filled.

Wanting to look your best isn’t a bad thing. The problem comes when appearance becomes more important than reality.

That was part of God’s complaint against Judah in Isaiah 1. On the outside, the people looked religious. They brought sacrifices. They attended worship. They prayed. They observed the proper festivals. They knew how to look faithful.

But God wasn’t impressed.

Their worship had become disconnected from the way they lived. So He told them to wash themselves, turn from evil, learn to do good, seek justice, defend the oppressed and care for those who were vulnerable.

In other words, God wasn’t interested in whether they merely looked mahvelous.

He cared about what was underneath.

The same is true for us. We can know the right Christian words, attend church, read our Bibles and pray all the right prayers while still neglecting the transformation God wants to bring into our lives. Genuine worship should change the way we treat people, especially those who need mercy, justice and compassion.

So this morning, comb your hair, straighten your tie, put on whatever makes you feel presentable, and by all means, look mahvelous.

But don’t spend so much time working on the person everyone else can see that you neglect the person God sees.

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Reflection copyright © 2026  Doug DeBolt and Charles Fulton.