JESUS…NEAT & TIDY OR DOWN & DIRTY
August 9, 2015
GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE TO YOU FROM GOD OUR HEAVENLY FATHER AND OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. AMEN
Are you familiar with the phrase…Neat & Tidy? When I was a Camp Director in Southern California, my Executive Director, Lenore continually compared me to my predecessor who according to her was “Neat and Tidy”. Obviously I was not Neat & Tidy, no matter how hard I tried to live up to her expectations. Whenever Lenore was coming to visit I would put on clean blue shorts and a very clean, ironed white blouse to show her I too was “Neat & Tidy”!
Alas, every time she arrived in camp I was a mess…the worst being the day the food shelves filled with cases of canned goods fell on the maintenance man and me just minutes before she arrived. You can imagine her look as I met her totally disheveled, dirty, and holding a very sore hand which had a cracked finger. “Neat & Tidy” just did not fit my job as Camp Director.
I often wonder if the same is true of Jesus. So often he is pictured as this “Neat & Tidy” person always in clean clothes, hair washed and every strand in place and always a smile… Think about the pictures you have seen of Jesus…the most often probably being Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord’s Supper, Peter walking on water and of course Jesus on the cross
In these pictures we see Jesus neatly groomed, clothes immaculately clean and of beautiful color, manicured nails and clean feet. The disciples and Jesus in pictures of the Lord’s supper also portray them to be immaculately groomed, lounging in their chairs chatting with one another. Even pictures of Peter walking on the water show him to be dry and clean. AND often we see a very clean, neat & tidy Jesus hanging from a very clean and sanded down cross.
Think also of the pictures of Jesus that show his agony, his trials and tribulations, his anger, grief and yes his suffering. This artwork is more often found in art galleries and museums, rarely in our churches. Have you ever come across a painting of Jesus in true agony and quickly moved on to find a more pasteurized rendition? And the movie “The Passion of Christ” comes to mind, not so much for the images portrayed, but the fact I have never seen the movie. I have never seen it because I truly do not want to see all the blood and gore that is so graphically displayed in movies today…AND especially as related to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! And there-in lies the dilemma. Is our Lord and Savior the Neat & Tidy Jesus so often depicted in our churches or is he the down & dirty Jesus seen in gruesome detail? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God? The Neat & Tidy Jesus in the Garden is comforting…the disciples lounging contentedly, Peter walking calmly and confidently on the water and yes, even the clean cross and calm Jesus just hanging there gives us a sense of “all is right with the world”. We can relate quite well to these images. We too can be Neat & Tidy…clean, calm and at peace. BUT… stop and think about what really is going on in these scenes…Jesus sweating blood in the Garden as he knows what is coming and pleading with his Father in heaven to relieve him of this duty…the disciples sitting up straight, looking around to identify the one who will betray Jesus…and Peter…how wet and disheveled he must have been, his eyes wide in terror with the seas crashing all around him…and Jesus on the cross…this hand hewn log holding his hands and feet, bloody from the nails that hold him there, the blood on his head from the crown of thorns, the sweat, grime and dirt mixed with his blood covering his body…And yes ,The passion depicted in the movie which I have never seen…We find ourselves in each and every scene…and that is hard and generally a very unpleasant place to be…for we find ourselves in our own Garden asking God to deliver us from pain and suffering…and saying the word’s “But Thy will be done” , wondering what that may mean and are we up to trusting God, our Father in heaven that far?! We find ourselves in the upper room hearing Jesus tell us he is going to die for us and wondering… am I the one who will betray him? Will we cower in a corner when someone asks us about our faith and Jesus? We find ourselves, as Peter, in the rocky seas of our lives…storms around us, knowing that Jesus has assured us he will be with us always and then taking our eyes off him, not trusting his words we slip deeper into despair…And we find ourselves at the foot of the cross, looking up at this man who had no sin hanging there, suffering an agony beyond comprehension, knowing that it is our sins too that have put him there. And it is there, at the foot of the cross, that we realize that Jesus, the Christ in our lives is both Neat & Tidy and Down and Dirty! That we need him to be Neat & Tidy on that cross to remind us that he was without sin or blemish…and Down & Dirty to remind us that he suffered and died for our sins. That it should be us hanging there…for we too should be convicted of all of our sins…not following the commands and teachings of Jesus and not Trusting God in all things.
And then we thank God that the cross, that hand hewn log, is not what we should glorify, but more importantly what happens after it…The Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For if the cross was the end, then all of our sins would still be there at the foot of it convicting us each and every day. But it is through God’s love and mercy that he raised his only Son from death to life. And it is there in the empty tomb that all of our sins have been left, forgotten, wiped out! The world in which we live is not that different from the world in which Jesus lived. Just as he was attacked, jeered, even spat on so we too find ourselves in unpleasant situations. There are times in all of our lives when we have to “take a stand”, to get “down and dirty” to maintain our identity as Christian, child of God.
Remember how hard it was as a child not to retaliate when someone hit you? How about the car game “Out-of-state license, no hits back”? Did you ever not “hit back”? And how about when someone called you a name, did you ever not have something to say back? Turning the other cheek is hard.
Standing up for what we believe is sometimes harder! What about injustices in our world? Do we take a stand or do we say well that does not apply to us? What about someone living in an abusive situation? Do we do something about it? What about when we can no longer share the true Christmas story in our parks and on our streets? Or we see discrimination in our workplace or bullying in our schools? Do we walk on by? For.. what can we Do?
How often do we take out our checkbook in response to someone in need, our neighbor wherever they may be? Think about going somewhere to physically help, but never quite getting out the door? How easy is it to turn our heads away from our neighbors even to the point of not sharing Christ crucified with them? Jesus did not say it was going to be easy …in fact, look what it got him…death on the cross. But it is precisely that death that gives us strength to carry on his work these 2000 and some years later. It is his death and resurrection that has put us into a right relationship with God, that gives us the God-given identity as children of God.
And with that identity comes the promises to be with us in all that we do in his name, the strength to stand up in the face of adversity, and yes…even the words when needed to proclaim the risen Lord.
It is this Jesus, the Christ, our Lord and savior, a man who has been in the trenches, has gotten his hands dirty, has wiped the sweat off his brow, and has triumphed over all adversity who walks with us on our journey and who will welcome us when we go to join him in his heavenly kingdom. For it was he, Jesus of Nazareth, who went to the cross for our sins…defeated death through his resurrection and assures us of eternal life. I pray that my God-given identity is as “Down and Dirty” as that of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! And now may the peace that passes all understanding be in your hearts and minds forever.
Amen
