The Real Dirt

I want to say first off that I am not condoning the defacing of public property. With that out of the way, I was reading one day about a guy who was in the bathroom at a popular coffee chain and he was taking notice of some of the writing on the wall. Along with all of the usual kind of stuff, someone had written “What Would Jesus Do?” there on the wall. Someone else had written directly underneath that, “Wash His hands.” A third person had written underneath that again, “And your feet.”

It is interesting that such a ‘discussion’ would take place in such a location. It is somehow made more appropriate by the fact that the dirt Jesus washed from the disciple’s feet was ‘real’ dirt. (See John 13) It wasn’t just what my mother called ‘clean dirt’ (read ‘mud’). First century Palestine wasn’t equipped with the hygienic luxuries we enjoy in our contemporary western world, and while sandals would have done a reasonable job of protecting feet from sharp rocks, they would have done little to keep out the filthy dust and dirt that would have been often unavoidable as they traveled.

Our 21st century eyes tend toward a very sanitized view of Jesus….

[Commercial Break: I highly recommend the book ‘The Jesus I Never Knew’ by Philip Yancey to help with that for those who haven’t read it. He is probably my favourite author and this is one of his best books.]

… The Lord of Glory descends to enter our world. He was born in a barn. Jesus was and is real world. He deals with our reality. He gets down into the dirty places of our living to clean. This is real life. Jesus isn’t into surface things. He’s not interested in appearance. He won’t be satisfied by anything superficial. He goes where He is needed most. He comes to our wretchedness and He brings His light with Him and His healing presence means we can never be the same. It’s humbling. It’s uncomfortable. It’s real. It’s the only hope for your soul and mine.