Zechariah 3:1-10
Psalm 119:49-72
Revelations 4:1-8
Matthew 24:45-51
"Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you." --Zech. 3:3-4
Early February is a time of awakening in me that I have to do something with my yard. There is usually a fabulous spring warm snap, and I will spend the day pulling weeds, trimming hedges, mulching, and generally playing in the dirt. At the end of the day I'm sweaty, covered in yard debris and filthy from head to toe. I ache, I'm tired, and all I want is a hot shower and an Advil. Getting clean never feels as wonderful as it does when I'm truly dirty.
Life is like this. We come into the world filthy, a literal filth, and we spend most of the rest of our days figuratively getting dirty. Luckily, from our first day, to our very last, someone is there to help us get cleaned up. Jesus is there to wash us, and not just our feet, although that gets us started. If we were never dirty, if we never knew sin and anguish and pain, we would never know the true joy of being clean. Our savior came into our world covered in the same filth that we come into the world covered in, so that he would understand how getting dirty works. In understanding us, he can clean us.
Have you ever cleaned someone and felt soulfully gratified? When my girls were toddlers and I washed away the layer of dirt that covered them and exposed the beautiful skin beneath the grime, I think I witnessed a tiny bit of how our Savior feels when we come to him to be washed of our sins. He sees us, knows that we have spent the day in the trenches, doing our best to stay clean but ending up dirty nonetheless, and then he gets to work. He cleans us and renews us and we are ready for another day. He does this because he was born to us, filthy, and was cleaned himself by loving hands.
"Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you." --Zech. 3:3-4
Early February is a time of awakening in me that I have to do something with my yard. There is usually a fabulous spring warm snap, and I will spend the day pulling weeds, trimming hedges, mulching, and generally playing in the dirt. At the end of the day I'm sweaty, covered in yard debris and filthy from head to toe. I ache, I'm tired, and all I want is a hot shower and an Advil. Getting clean never feels as wonderful as it does when I'm truly dirty.
Life is like this. We come into the world filthy, a literal filth, and we spend most of the rest of our days figuratively getting dirty. Luckily, from our first day, to our very last, someone is there to help us get cleaned up. Jesus is there to wash us, and not just our feet, although that gets us started. If we were never dirty, if we never knew sin and anguish and pain, we would never know the true joy of being clean. Our savior came into our world covered in the same filth that we come into the world covered in, so that he would understand how getting dirty works. In understanding us, he can clean us.
Have you ever cleaned someone and felt soulfully gratified? When my girls were toddlers and I washed away the layer of dirt that covered them and exposed the beautiful skin beneath the grime, I think I witnessed a tiny bit of how our Savior feels when we come to him to be washed of our sins. He sees us, knows that we have spent the day in the trenches, doing our best to stay clean but ending up dirty nonetheless, and then he gets to work. He cleans us and renews us and we are ready for another day. He does this because he was born to us, filthy, and was cleaned himself by loving hands.
Krystal Weiss