'Distance lends enchantment to the view' is an English saying which means that the further away something is, the better it looks. The defects are hidden and faint-sight allows the mind to create something beautiful out of ugliness. Jesus accused the Scribes and Pharisees of doing that with the tombs of martyred prophets.
 
The religious leaders of Jesus' day loved to create heroes out of dead prophets, especially those who had died violently at the hands of their own people who would not tolerate God speaking to them prophetically. The leaders, even though they were the descendants of murderers, wanted to be seen as the righteous people who honoured the prophets and would never have treated them badly. But it was all false; they really only wanted the people to honour them.
 
Jesus was quite abrupt with them. He said that their honouring of the dead was dishonest in pretending that they would not have killed God's servants. Jesus knew they would soon kill Him. They built nice tombs as shrines to the dead, but they had death in their own hearts. Even though two of them, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were willing to bury Christ's body, they did not raise any protest at His unfair trial and sentencing to death (John 19:38-42).
 
Double standards are the root of hypocrisy: one attitude for people to see, and another which is the person's true desire. The bigger the difference, the more ludicrous the pretence. It is so much easier to praise people when they cannot challenge us, than obey them when they can. It takes courage to admit what is wrong and take a share of the blame, knowing that we are no better than our forefathers. Human nature keeps forgetting the lessons of history because we think that we are better than them. We are not. We are all sinners. If we had been in the crowd, we too would have shouted "Crucify Him, Crucify Him" (Matthew 27:22-23). So forget pride and posturing, get real. Repent before it is too late.