Dan Czaplewski posted on January 03, 2010 06:23
Do you have a waterless hand cleaner with you right now? Our church has dispensers in our lobby and in the halls of our school.
Because of the concern over the H1N1 flu virus, we are washing our hands and using various brands of germ-killing gels. We’re told this is supposed to help. It certainly has helped sales for the companies that produce hand cleaner. I suppose that our hands are cleaner now than they were before a microscopic threat got so much attention in the press.
Dirty hands are bad; lately, they are almost un-American. It is your patriotic duty to sneeze into your elbow and wash your hands frequently – and USE SOAP! I think the image of dirty hands helps me understand what God did when Christ was born.
Jesus is God with dirty hands. When Christ was born, God got His hands dirty in the mess of this world. God’s hands stayed dirty for about 33 years.
I was in the delivery room when both of my sons were born. I discovered that babies don’t start out all clean and tidy. Imagine a baby in a manger with hands covered in the amniotic gook of child birth – God with dirty hands. Then, as that baby grew into a boy, He did what little boys do; He played in the dirt of Nazareth before supper – God with dirty hands. See Jesus working in the carpentry trade: like all working men He hands had dirt caked under His nails and in His cuticles – God with dirty hands. In His ministry Jesus put His hands on lepers, those with other incurable diseases, and He picked up grubby little kids to place His hands of blessing on them – God with dirty hands. In the end, those hands were stretched out on a cross and caked with His dried blood – God with dirty hands.
God got His hands dirty in the mess and brokenness of this world. If you feel that things are a bit messy in your life or if you recognize your own brokenness, you can be confident that God isn’t afraid to get His hands dirty in your life.
The best part about God with dirty hands is that, because Jesus was willing to get His hands dirty, you stand before God clean, holy, and righteous in His sight. The mess of your life was taken to the cross in the body of Jesus Christ.
{For a more detailed discussion of this image of “God with dirty hands,” you can listen to my Christmas Eve sermon by following this link:
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