Case in point. Over the holidays, some of our kids were coming over with their kids. That meant restless grands needing some space to play and get rowdy. So, I went out ahead of time to pick up the dog poo from the back yard. We convince ourselves we can avoid those annoying moments when the kids race in and the adult spots an off-color and – sure enough – off-SMELLING – footprint or three on the floor just inside the back door. Stop! Check the bottom of your shoes! Ugh! Where’s the disinfecting cleaner!
I do my best, but it is nearly inevitable that the dogs are more prolific than I am thorough. Maybe you’ve been there.
Anyhow, as I was executing my well-rehearsed pickup method with hand in inverted doggy poo bag, I noticed at one point that I had worked a little tear into the plastic – too aggressive about this cleanup. Naturally, I immediately wondered: Did this just happen or has this hole been there for the last few piles? Of course, at risk is the purity of my hand.
Even when the bag has retained its integrity, I always feel like some of the nastiness has somehow found its way onto my hand, so I am cautious and mindful. For example, it’s been my experience that these little rolls of plastic bags have usually gotten too hot at some point. This means one has to lick one’s fingers before rubbing them together on the unsealed end to get it open. This is not an issue for a single-bag pickup, a one-and-done poo extraction. However, when you are clearing a whole yard of a month’s worth of deposits, which requires peeling off and opening multiple doggy bags…
Well, you can see why one must be careful to remember which is the “licking” hand and which is the “picking” hand.
So, in this moment of panicked assessment, a flurry of theological ideas came to mind. I’m odd that way. Still, maybe these will get you thinking as well.
First, I cannot imagine how repugnant and offensive my sin and impurity are to a perfectly pure and holy God. Were I to imagine myself in this moment as perfectly clean, dressed all in white down to the soles of my shoes, and surrounded by the poo of a million dogs, the analogy could still not stretch far enough. I cannot comprehend how offensive my impurity is to God. My reaction to the tracks on the floor in the house could not begin to compare to the proper reaction of God if I were to waltz into his presence with unconfessed sin or an unresolved conflict or angry disposition or some other impurity – maybe a favorite idol stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
I wonder how many times we come storming into God’s house in exactly the same way. Like Sunday mornings, for example. Six days (or more!) out on the playground, picking up all kinds of yuck, and we come barging in looking for food and drink and more fun – maybe some hugs – and tracking mess everywhere! Maybe if we sometimes find Sunday’s worship experience a little lacking, it’s because God is staring at us, pointing to the filth and saying, Really? Take off your shoes outside. You’re standing on holy ground. I am reminded that we, like children, do not think nearly enough, nearly often enough, about cleaning up.
Second, I remember how grateful I am for the cleansing and atoning work of Christ. However long I spent in that yard, I was going to miss something. Likewise, no matter how careful I would be, no matter how hard I might scrub, I would never be able to get clean enough to come into God’s house, to come close to him. This filth of this world – and my own sin – is horribly offensive to God. That makes nearness to him fatal, even impossible (without help).
Think of the Israelites not daring to come up on mount Sinai where God’s cataclysmic presence was (Ex 19). Impurity is the reason God gave the law to them, why the rules about tabernacle access were so stringent, why there was a holy place and even a most holy place. We humans are in desperate need for cleaning up. Jesus is the solution, the cleaning solution, if you will. The rituals God gave the ancient Israelites did not purify them. Their obedience in faith did. The rituals brought them into a state of faithful following, but they looked forward to the real solution for impurity. That was the atoning and cleansing work of Christ’s blood offered on the cross. We now look back on that completed work with another ritual, and it too only symbolizes – but is not itself – the real power of cleansing. Baptism.
As I continued my work, I thought ahead to the fact that I would surely wash my hands thoroughly. I began to think how cleaning works, and that led me to my third big theological thought.
Jesus’ cleaning power is mind-boggling. Think about washing your hands. How does that work? You keep running water over the dirt. Filth washes away. But how clean is clean? When you wash out a rag, how does it get clean? There is repeated dilution. You keep reducing the number of parts per million of microscopic gunk in the rag or the bucket or whatever. How many parts per million is clean? 1000? 100? 1? 0.000001?
I realized that this points to the reality that only Jesus could ever truly clean any of us, let alone ALL of us. The cleaning power of any other man would be limited, and at best could only approach clean. The dirty parts per million number could never get to zero. Only an infinitely pure Man could do that. Only a God-Man could to that. Since God is one, there could only be one God-Man. He is Jesus.
This is why until Jesus came unclean people had to be quarantined, just like those with the recent coronavirus. The unclean corrupts the clean. When Jesus hit the scene, he showed his power to reverse that. He walked up and touched lepers and cleansed them. He did the same for blind and deaf and lame and even reversed death. This was only the demonstration of his power in the visible realm, so that we might become aware of his real power, that to cleanse spiritually. Jesus CAN clean every impurity in the hearts and lives of us sinners. And he DOES for everyone who believes and who asks.
This means we are welcome in the house, provided we come in with Jesus. That makes us clean. SWEET! Praise God for the cleansing work of Christ, so we can come into the house and be with him!
Revelation 22:14–15 (CSB)
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (CSB)
Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (CSB)
He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 10:19–22 (CSB)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
