Have you ever had the opportunity to power wash something? It is incredible. I felt like Tim Taylor on “Tool Time!” The energy, the power, the brute force in which dirt and moss were no match for the air compressed water shooting through the wand of fury! Now granted there are side effects…mainly you tend to get soaked…but I kind of imagined I was standing near Niagra Falls (even though I have never been there) taking in the beauty and majesty and power of water as the mist settled in around me drenching me through and through.
Ok – I know this is an over-the-top poetic representation of a very mind-numbing task, but it really was fun! And it gives you a ton of time to think.
For example, I naturally thought about all the references of water in the Bible. Water in the Bible frequently represents life – new life. It provided an escape route for the Israelites out of the dessert. It provided life for Elijah as he drank from a creek. It provided a place for John to mark the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And it even gave a talking point for the Jews and Samaritans to find common ground at a well. Everywhere you look throughout the scriptures water was powerful, it was significant, it was important.
So there I was a week or so ago…power washing my driveway and patio because I live in the Pacific Northwest and it is damp, and here, moss doesn’t just grow on the north side of trees…it grows on everything! It was time to make everything clean and shiny again!
The metaphor was so obvious as I watched the grime and crud and years of ugliness being stripped away to reveal the beauty of the original stone work.
This is exactly what Jesus does for you and me. Our lives can tend to build up a film, a gunk, an overall growth of ugliness if we don’t allow Him to “wash” us. Now this is more than just taking a baby wipe and scrubbing a little bit. Sure that makes you smell good, and most of the dirt is removed, but a power-wash is what we all need. A washing from the life giving water from Jesus.
We need to allow Jesus to really get at the buildup in our lives. That buildup is of course – sin! And let me tell you – it can be really hard to let go of things that are making our lives less than they should be – a representation of God. We were made in the image of God or Imago Dei – and that is the image that needs to be restored…
In the fourth chapter of John, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well and tells her in verse 14, “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” And again in John chapter 7 Jesus promises this living water. He says in verse 37, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.”
And so there I was stripping away moss and dirt from the stonework around my house, all while praying that Jesus would continue to keep the build up of sin from my life…
Why? Simply because it is the Imago Dei that I want people to see in me! There is nothing more beautiful in life than that!
Until Next Time…
Pastor Barry
Pastor Barry's Blog 