Passion Week: Jesus Got His Uniform Dirty
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Passion Week: Jesus Got His Uniform Dirty
Spring is here and so is baseball. I love watching little leaguers in their colorful new uniforms on opening day. The only problem is, they usually don’t want to get them dirty on the first night. For many that means not laying out for that line drive or failing to slide into a base when they should. After a player on my son’s team failed to slide into home, a highly animated coach asked the kid, “Did you just shave your legs and are afraid to mess them up?”
That imagery reminds me of an essential truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ: God wasn’t afraid to get dirty for us.
Passion Week is when we celebrate history’s most significant and revolutionary event. And at the heart of all of it’s many theological implications is this inescapable truth: The Creator and Sustainer of this universe loves you so much that He was willing to get dirty for you, so that He could save you. Scholars would refer to this as the Incarnation; God wrapping himself in flesh and stepping into our messy world.
From the time that Jesus came into this world to the day He ascended back into heaven, He got dirty.
On the day He was born, they wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and placed Him in a manger. These cloths were rags that had very likely been used to wipe down animals in the stall. From the very beginning God was showing the world that His sinless Son would take upon Himself the dirt, the grime, and the mess of our sins.
Jesus also got dirty in the sense that he associated with people whom others rejected. When the Pharisees (the self-righteous religious leaders) found Jesus reclining at a table in the home of a tax collector and dining with “many” sinners, they immediately questioned his disciples saying, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when [Jesus] heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:11-13 ESV)
This highly offended the religious establishment of Jesus’ day because they prided themselves in staying away from sinners and people they deemed as unclean. It made them feel more righteous. But Jesus confronted their spiritual pride by opening his arms to sinners.
In John 4, Jesus associates with a Samaritan woman at a well. It was revolutionary for a Jewish rabbi to do this because the Samaritans were considered a ‘dirty’ race by the Jews; an inferior and unclean race of people. Plus this woman was considered unclean from a moral standpoint by the religious establishment in Jesus’ time, making this encounter even more scandalous. But Jesus valued people too much to worry about what others were thinking about him. He pointed this so-called ‘dirty’ woman to a life-giving relationship with God and she went back home and shared the Gospel with her entire village!
Jesus wasn’t afraid to get dirty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “That is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
When they tortured Jesus and nailed Him to the cross, He fulfilled a 700-year-old prophecy by Isaiah, who described a coming Savior as one who would be beaten so badly that he would be marred and disfigured beyond recognition (Isaiah 52:14).
Talk about getting dirty!
Why would Jesus be willing to get this dirty? Well, the answer is found in Romans 5:8:
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
It was God’s love that drove Him into the mess, the chaos of our world, and the brokenness of our own lives.
This is history’s most significant event: The sinless Son of God becoming disfigured so that we, sinners, could be reconciled with a holy and perfect God. Jesus took all of the filth associated with our sin, wrapped himself in it, and nailed it to the cross. He then buried it in the grave and on the third day, He rose from that grave proving that He is indeed the very Son of the living God.
Peter said, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)
My friend, Jesus was willing to get dirty so that you could be reconciled to God, be healed of your brokenness, and become whole again. May His death on the cross and resurrection on the third day continue to declare victory in your life over any guilt, shame, or condemnation.
You are loved, and your God proved it by getting His uniform dirty! Remember this as you abide in Him today.
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