Bring Me Your Dirty Laundry

I

 remember the excitement of going off to college.  As soon as I received my acceptance letter, I determined to buy myself a T-shirt and give the college some free advertisement. When the weekend came, I drove over to the college and bought a T-shirt which I proudly displayed at school the following Monday morning.  I was really excited about being accepted and looked forward to starting my college career.

In the few months that followed, things grew very hectic.  I contacted my new roommate and we decided who would bring what for the room.  There were also all the necessities to buy: sheets, towels, washcloths, clothes, toiletries, a refrigerator (a definite necessity), a stapler, a calculator, etc. You get the idea; I needed a lot of stuff.

Finally, the big day came.  We loaded the car, jumped in, and my parents packed me off to college. After receiving my schedule, moving into my dorm room, and telling my parents goodbye, I settled in for the excitement of college life.  Oh, what a surprise was in store for me!  Classes started the following Tuesday and by Tuesday afternoon, I began wondering if I had made some sort of terrible mistake.  The hunger for independence had left me hungry indeed:  hungry for home, hungry for familiar surroundings, hungry for my room, and hungry for mom’s cooking.

At least one weekend a month, I went home. Since the college was only 45 minutes from our house, one of my parents would pick me up at the dorm.  I always called the night before to make sure they hadn’t forgotten about my visit (like that would ever happen!!!) and mom always told me the same thing:  Bring me your dirty laundry!!

I always wondered how she knew my laundry was dirty; moms always seem to know those things.  So, in accordance with her wishes, I brought home huge duffle bags full of the stuff.  As soon as we got home, she started!   I got a kick out of listening to her as she went through my clothes, commenting on the level of “filthiness” of each item and wondering how I could stand to wear things like that.  In her own way, she was letting me know she enjoyed feeling needed.

Then we came to the whites, especially the socks!!!  Boy did I take a ribbing then.  Needless to say, chlorine bleach was a foreign concept to me and when I washed I just dumped everything together.  Hey, fifty cents is a lot of money when you’re a poor student!!!  But I have to admit, my socks and whites were just a little on the dingy side but when mom finished them, they were white as January snow!

Two Old Testament writers had a lot to say about dirty laundry.  In fact, both of these men had a very good understanding of just how dingy, unclean, and downright filthy our lives are before a holy God.  The first of these writers is the prophet Isaiah.  He understood all to well that all our attempts at righteousness are doomed to failure and the best we can do is to present God with dirty, smelly rags that are in no way spotless.  In Isaiah 64:6 we read these words, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”   

Isaiah has the right idea, doesn’t he?  Without God, there is no way we can be righteous. All our works, no matter how wonderful or well intentioned, can’t even approach God’s standards for righteousness.  We are filthy before Him and we need His touch to make us clean.  Isaiah says that all of us (no one is left out) “have become like one who is unclean.”  The idea of uncleanness is so important to the understanding of the Old Testament and the ability to approach God.  Under the law, almost anything one did or touched could make him unclean.  In order to be clean, he had to wait a certain period of time and then offer a sacrifice. It was impossible to come into God’s presence while one was unclean.  Needless to say, the priests were always busy offering sacrifices to atone for the people’s uncleanness.

In Psalm 51:7, we read another perspective on the filthiness of sin before a holy God, "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”  The writer of this verse is King David.  Although the Scriptures described David as a man after God’s own heart, he was very familiar with the concept of sin’s stain on his life.  During his lifetime, David was guilty of deceit, adultery, and murder. When Nathan the prophet finally confronted him with his sins, David repented and wrote these words in Psalm 51.  His words seem a fitting response to Isaiah’s observation. 

David knew he had sinned and he knew he was unclean, very unclean.  His sins separated him from the wonderful relationship he had enjoyed with God and they affected his ability to govern his people.  In this Psalm, David cries out to the Lord to cleanse him.  He knows that only God can remove the stain of his sins and restore the relationship David broke.  Like Isaiah, David knows he is dirty but he also knows that God can make him clean, whiter than snow. 

This is the great truth both of these men, living in different times, understood.  God’s righteousness never changes and we can never be clean in our own right or on our own terms.  We need God’s touch to make our hearts clean so that we can enjoy a right relationship with Him.  This is why Jesus came, to shed his own blood to save us and cleanse us from the stain and the filthiness of sin.  We cannot do this on our own.  Only by faith in Jesus Christ and only by accepting him as our savior can we hope to be clean from sin’s stain.

S

o are you tired of doing your laundry on your own?  Are you tired of washing and scrubbing only to find out that your life’s laundry is still dingy, dull, and filthy?  Bring everything to God.  He can take your life and make it clean, whole, and acceptable before Him.  Don’t you hear Him saying to you, “Bring me your dirty laundry today!”  Well, what are you waiting for?