Jesus Cleaned & Purified

What Did Jesus Do?

And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying,
“I will; be clean.”
Matthew 8.3

They are ages-old questions that Proctor and Gamble and others have tried to answer with varying degrees of success: How do you remove stubborn stains? What can cleanse as white as snow? Is 99.9% pure, pure enough?

When it comes to removing the stain of sin, there is nothing on the supermarket shelf that can get the job done. I don’t care what the late Billy Mayes said about the many he products he hawked on television, they were all bested by sin. Only one thing can wash away our sins, and there is only one place to get it, at the cross.

People don’t generally look in grocery stores for sin-eradication help, but they do look pretty much everywhere else. Some go and see psychologists for help with guilt-removal. Some employ drugs to try and erase memories and relieve sin’s sting. Others pursue various paths of enlightenment proffered by eastern religions. And many simply move to Egypt and live in denial (“The Nile,” get it? Pardon my pun). But none of this works, and sin stubbornly refuses to go away. What’s a housewife (Or any of us) to do? Well, the Father has perfected a formula that really works on sin using the ingredients of confession, repentance, and asking for forgiveness to apply the one and only sure-fire sin stain remover:

…and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
1John 1.7

Of course, Jesus helps us in every way, as the above captioned verse from Matthew 8 illustrates. When the impurest of the impure approached Him in desperation Jesus did not hesitate to reach out and touch a leper and impart perfect purity to his skin, because with leprosy anything less than 100% purity leaves one an outcast. But Jesus cured more than leprosy. All kinds of illness, infection, and infirmity, both physical and spiritual, responded to the Lord’s word of authority. Jesus is the all-time “cleaner-upper.”

Unfortunately, sin, and corruption, and all kinds of uncleanness remain in the world. That’s why those of us whom Jesus has cleansed need to be cleaners. Jesus essentially declared us His agents of cleansing and purifying long ago when He told us, “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5.13) You see, in the ancient world salt was just about the number 1 cleansing and purifying agent. Salt wasn’t rubbed in wounds to make them burn, but to destroy corrupting germs and bacteria. Salt has cleansing and preserving qualities, and Jesus needed His followers to go out into the world in His name and battle corruption and sin with the power of the Holy Spirit.

In a world where evil and sin and filth stubbornly refuse to go away, and men and women despair of ever being made clean and pure, the hopeless ask, “Can anyone help us be clean? Will anyone help me?” Salty Christians are the ones who need to respond to these desperate pleas, “I will!” That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4