From Gross to Glory

My parents recently became members of the satellite television club. Not too long after that I was over at their house and my dad and I was watching a show that was a little beyond belief in its content.
Before I go on I have a question for you; what is the most disgusting, gross, or repugnant thing you have ever seen? It was so bad that you could not bear to be around it? Now that I have set you up let me go on with my story of that fateful day.
As many of you may know there is a show called Dirty Jobs. I will admit that until that day I had never heard of the show much less seen it. As circumstance would have it this was no ordinary episode. This was the top of the garbage heap, the grossest jobs that the host, Mike Rowe, had ever done for the show.
The episode started out with a basement toilet that backed up. Now that might sound bad enough, but this basement was covered with – well – everything that the neighbors had flushed from their toilets! My dad and I sat in disbelief. My mom was walking through the room and quickly decided to do something else – actually anything else - than sit and watch with us. This was completely beyond my ability to describe it in mere words. Somehow the words gross, disgusting, or repugnant just doesn’t give what I saw justice. It was the worst thing I had ever seen (as I was watching I was so thankful that we have not come up with smell-o-vision)!
Some time later our church was commemorating communion together when that day came to my mind. Of all the things one could think of this may be one of the weirdest.
I have thought for many years that of all of the things that Jesus did for us that the physical beatings and even the brutal crucifixion was the least of His sacrifices. The sacrifices started the day that He left Heaven for a life on earth. It describes it well in Philippians 2: 7-8a, “but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself…”
Jesus left Heaven, a place where He had the delight of being in the physical presence of the Father, was all powerful, knew everything, was not limited by time or space, felt no physical pain, and enjoyed perfect union to come here to be with us. Jesus would now know what it was like to feel thirsty, hungry, sick, tired, the frustration of arguments with family and friends and the list goes on and on. And He did this for you and me!
The biggest thing that Jesus did for us was to die on the cross. He endured the yelling, spiting, beatings, being made fun of, and ultimately the pain and humiliation of death on a cross. And again He did all of this as a volunteer. No one made Jesus go through all of that. In fact, He could of at any time called down the host of Heaven to rescue Him. At anytime Jesus could have said, “Enough is enough. I am not going to do this. It’s not worth it, these people are so sinful and corrupt that they are not worth redemption.” But He didn’t. Jesus ultimately became the grossest, most disgusting thing that the Father could imagine: sin.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul states that, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us…” That is a startling reality – Jesus who was perfect and had never sinned, became sin. The one thing that God hated Jesus became. The one thing that God could not merely turn His back on and ignore Jesus became. The pain of seeing His son on the cross had to be heartbreaking for sure. But this? This is too much for even the Father to look at.
“Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried out. “Why Father have you turned your back on me? We have known perfect unity. We created the world and everything in it. I volunteered for this assignment. You didn’t make me do it. I love you. Help me!” And there was only silence. There would be no response this time. There would no dove coming from Heaven with a voice saying, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” Nothing but the darkest, loneliest silence Jesus ever experienced.
God could look past the blood, the disfigured face and body. He could look past the nails in the hands and feet of His son. He could look past Jesus hanging there stripped of clothes and dignity. He could look past Jesus’ physical condition, but not Jesus’ spiritual condition. God tells us in 1 Samuel 16: 7 that God is much more concerned about our spiritual condition than our physical appearance. The condition of Jesus’ heart is what God could not tolerate. It had become dark, black, gross, disgusting, repugnant, and ravaged by sin.
The good news for Jesus and for us is that God was able to clean Jesus’ heart. He was able to forgive Jesus and place Jesus at His mighty right hand where He is still to this very day. But the good news doesn’t end there. Just as God washed Jesus’ heart from sin He can do that for us too. It matters not what you look like to God, it never has and never will. What matters is what your heart looks like. And no matter who you are or what you’ve done He is able and willing to clean you and adopt you as His son or daughter. He is able to turn that which is gross into something that is glorious. That’s a job that Mike Rowe couldn’t even clean up.