Soap

"You blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too."

- Jesus, Matthew 23:26

"I clean when I'm angry. So, if you show up unannounced and my house is clean… you might want to reconsider your visit." (Smile)

- A Friend

Any parent who has ever had a son or daughter go away to college may appreciate this story. During his sophomore year, our son got a house close to campus with four other guys. Now, all these boys had been raised with high standards of cleanliness. But, somehow, all of that went out the window in that house.

So, one Saturday morning, Candace says to me, "C'mon! You and I are going over to clean their house." I'll never forget… I walked into their shower and realized there was no soap in the entire bathroom. No soap… no body wash… no shampoo… nothing! I said, "Tyler, did you know there's no soap anywhere in your shower?" "Nope," he replied. "How do you get clean?" "Hot water," he said. And I'm like, "No! It doesn't count if you stand under the water for 30 minutes, no matter how hot it is… That's not clean!" Ha! Fortunately, his standards returned long ago… but are currently being tested by his own little boy who prefers playing cars in the dirt to taking a bath. Ahhh… divine payback!

But "Getting Clean" is an issue as old as time! In Jesus' day, there was a group of religious people, called Pharisees, who believed that a superficial outside cleansing was enough to offset the deep intensive cleaning that was needed on the inside. And Jesus had some strong words for them:

"What sorrow awaits you teachers of the law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs - beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity."

- Matthew 23:27

"White-washed Tombs"... this metaphor is kind of lost on us today. But, in that day, this would have been deeply offensive to these listeners. You see, before every major Jewish festival, the religious leaders would go around the city with buckets of white paint and white-wash all the graves and tombs so the people going to Jerusalem could avoid coming into contact with them… because, if they accidentally stepped on a grave they would be rendered ceremonially "unclean" and so could not enter the Temple and approach God… which was the whole point of their journey. So, by calling these Pharisees "White-washed Tombs," Jesus is saying to them: "You are not nearly as 'good' as you think you are! You take a magnifying glass and point out the faults, failings, and sins of everyone else and refuse to see the selfishness, the pride, the judgment, the lust, the greed, the faults and sin in your own heart that need to be washed clean with a soap of another kind!"

You know what I love about Jesus? He leveled the playing field by stating that no one is better than anyone else…

That we all need to be forgiven and restored in a personal relationship with God! Jesus stood between two groups of people - the law-makers and the law-breakers, the behavers and the misbehavers, those who felt they were close to God ‘cause they do everything right and those who felt they were far from God ‘cause they do everything wrong - and Jesus declared, "Hey! You're all way worse than you ever dreamed you are, but you're also loved by God way more than you ever imagined!"

Listen… the bad news is: We're worse than we thought! The good news is: God loves us way more than we ever dreamed! So, put a magnifying glass on the intentions of your heart today and let your faults, your failings, your bad attitudes lead you to the cleansing soap of God's forgiveness and grace that flows down from Jesus on Calvary's cross. Just whisper, "Jesus, wash me clean!"

‘Cause when you're washed clean on the Inside, you're clean all over in the presence of God. AMEN

Pastor Harry

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