Wrinkles in the Bedcovers

W

hen I was a teenager I had some real quirks and odd habits. What teenager doesn’t?  I spent more time in the bathroom, I ran too much hot water, I spent more time on the phone, and I bugged my parents incessantly about letting me drive the car.  While all these things go hand-in-hand with adolescence, there was one habit I had that no other teenager experienced.

Every night before going to sleep I would get into bed and smooth down the covers.  I wouldn’t tolerate one wrinkle in the bedspread.  Sometimes it took me as long as thirty minutes before the bed covers were to my liking.  Why I did this is beyond me but I remember spending several minutes smoothing out the bedspread, making sure no wrinkles or pleats of any kind occurred in my bedspread.

When I was finally satisfied all was well with the bedspread, I would go to sleep.  However, when I awoke, things were not as I left them.  My bed covers were no longer wrinkle-free.  Instead, it looked as if the world championships of sumo wrestling had taken place in my bed and I had definitely lost.   All that work, all that attention, all that smoothing of the sheets just for them to end up in a knotted and twisted roll.  No matter how good my intentions, I simply could not change the fact that I slept, as my father so eloquently put it, “like a goat!”  I’ve never understood what that meant exactly, having never observed the sleeping habits of goats.

The prophet Isaiah understood that no amount of work, smoothing, or good intentions was enough to remove our sins from us.  He had a fundamental understanding of sin, knowing it to be a filthy, smelly, twisted, and knotty pile of rags that can never be straightened or smoothed by any human effort.  In Isaiah 64:6 we read, “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.”

In this passage, Isaiah uses the word “all” three times.  It is clear that no one escapes sin’s hold and that no effort on our part, no matter how well intentioned or helpful it may be, can ever remove the stain and filth from our lives.  Paul echoes this same idea in his letter to the Romans, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

This is why we need Jesus Christ.  He came and shed his blood and became the sacrifice for our sins.  There is no other way to God but through him.  All our attempts, no matter how noble, how helpful, or how kind they may be can ever remove the filthy stain of sin in our lives.  The only thing that can make us clean is to be washed in the blood of Christ.  Are you still trying to smooth out all the wrinkles in the bedcovers of your life today?