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He makes us clean ...
Wednesday, June 25, 2014. I remember a film szene, where in some war environment soldiers search people at a checkpoint. “He is clean” is the typical sentence one of them uses to say, when he did not find any weapons. People who are free of dangerous things are allowed to pass.
Clean - what does it mean? …
In the bible, “to be clean” is used many times. In the Old Testament there are special rules about cleaning yourself and cleaning your hands when it comes to food. But being clean is also used in a spiritual sense. No one who was not clean could come close to God. The high priest was allowed to enter this special area of the temple once a year. On Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, he was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies.
Being clean has a deep meaning. It is about our relationship to God, but also about our relationship to all other people around us. It is about our motives, about what we say and do, but more than that, about what we think as well, about feelings, about goals and dreams, about the overall setup of our life. Let us read first, before we go into some further discussion:
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” (John 13, 1-10)
Being Clean - Are We? …
Jesus claims that when you believe in him, you are clean. When he washes you, through faith in him and in his father, you are clean before God. You are as clean as the High Priest, who was allowe to enter the Holy of Holies. The doors to approach God are open for you, you can go to him as a little child runs to his mother and father. We are given a fantastic perspective for our life, and the perspective starts already now with the Holy Spirit to come into our heart and our mind!
Practically, the statements of Jesus lead to a lot of questions as well. What about all the bad things which Christians do? We are claimed to be clean - and without doubt there is something deep happening when we come to personal faith in Christ Jesus. People start to change strongly! Violent people become calm and friendly. But there are also a lot of things which are not ok in the life of Christians. The disciples are not made perfect in terms of their behaviour. Martin Luther has summed that up in the sentense “simul justus et peccator” - at the same time justified and sinners.
This cleaning of Jesus has two parts, like two sides of one coin. There is the justification which happens in one go - we ARE justified, we ARE clean. There is nothing more to be done. But there is the other side: we are called to be clean. We are called to act as kids of the most high. Our will, our decisions, everything we are is called to be a part of the transition. It takes our whole life to learn to live with him. Discipleship is a learning process. God wants us to follow by our own decisions, with our own will, step by step.
And in each step we learn, that we need him and his actions, to help us. He is our continuous source of goodness, of strength, of motivation and purity. He is there, day by day, washing our feet! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts