Barbara Brown Taylor writes about a friend whose father, a mechanic, died from a heart attack. "He kept a clean shop, and before he went home at night he scrubbed his hands with a boar's bristle brush, washing away the grime of the day. But as careful as he was, his hands stayed stained in places, and it was that my friend was looking for. Turning his father's big hand over in his own, he saw the motor oil in the fingerprints, the calluses dark from years of hauling engines, and he smiled. 'It's him,' he said. 'They tried to clean him up, but look, they couldn't. It's my daddy. It's really him." (in Paul Scott Wilson, "Setting Words on Fire," p. 23)
Morticians try to make us look good in death ... just as we try to make ourselves look good to others in life ... but we are what we are. Only God makes us clean in the grime, in the uncleanness of life in this sinful world. “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11) And only cleansing by the Spirit of Christ will bring us into eternal life. “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Revelation 21:27)
The grime of your work day after day, the wrinkles from worrying and from laughing, the calluses and age spots that testify to the years, these make you a witness of God’s steadfast love, they remind you of sin and grace and they speak to others. “It’s really him.” You’re really a dear child of God.
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