No Stains

O

ne Saturday afternoon I entered our dining room and caught my mother in the act!  She was hunkered over a tray, rubbing it feverishly.  I stood there for a few minutes and watched as she rubbed, scrubbed, buffed, and wiped a silver serving tray she received for her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  The tray was stained and tarnished, and dark blotches covered every inch of its surface.  But as I watched her apply silver cleaner to the tray with vigor and determination, a small miracle took place.  Instead of blemished silver, a shiny, pristine surface came perfectly into view. 

 

I became fascinated with this process for two reasons.  First, my mom knew there was beautiful silver underneath all that gunk.  She also knew what to use to make the silver shine forth in all its radiance.  She patiently sat there, applying cleaner, rubbing away at the stains until they were all gone.  Her hard work and determination were rewarded with a tray that looked the same as it did when she first received it. 

 

But there was something else that captivated my attention far more than the shining silver.  What I noticed most was my mother’s hands.  They had grown dirty and tarnished from working with the silver. All the gunk on the tray had been transferred to my mom’s hands and the rag she used to polish it.  For over a week I was unable to get that image out of my mind.  It is the perfect picture of God’s love and what Christ did for us at Calvary. 

 

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul makes the following observation, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27).  

 

The command here is for husbands to love their wives in the same way as Christ loved the church.  This leads to a great question:  How did Christ love the church?  Paul gives us the answer in verses 26-27.  Christ loved us so much that he gave himself, all of himself, for us.  He washed us, cleansed us, polished us, so that we would be perfect, having no stains, wrinkles, or blemishes but that we would be pure, holy, and completely blameless before him.   

 

Jesus sees through the tarnish of sin that clouds our lives. He knows that we can shine forth but we will never do so unless we allow him to rub us, to apply the cleansing solution of his blood and abundant grace so that all of sin’s stains and blemishes can be removed from our lives.  Patiently he works, rubbing here, buffing there, and continually applying his love to our hearts until we shine forth. In the process, our sin, our stains, our blemishes are completely removed.  On Calvary, all that gunk was transferred to Christ.  He became stained with it and bore its shame so that we wouldn’t have to. 

 

This is how Christ loves us.  Completely, without reserve, seeing below the surface of what we are to what we can become if we will accept his gift of salvation and allow him to work in our lives.  The next time you see a piece of silver that needs polishing let it remind you of how much God loves you.  If you are a Christian, He is at work buffing, rubbing, cleansing, and removing every blemish and stain sin has placed in your life.  He will not finish until you stand before him, complete, perfect, holy, having no stains!  May his name be praised today!