The Power to Cleanse

He provided the way for people to be made pure from sin. Then he sat down at the right hand of the King, the Majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 1:3b

Jesus is the final and complete word of God to man because he has solved the deepest problem in human life — the problem of human sinfulness. Everybody today is asking, in the face of some of the tragic things that are happening, What's wrong with humanity? What's wrong with life? Why is the world in a such a mess? Why are our papers filled with murder and violence and hate and corruption and darkness? The answer of Scripture universally is, Man's sin, or, to put it even more realistically, and more helpfully, to us, Man's selfishness. That is what lies at the root of it all, the terrible taint that all of us possess that can never be washed away by our own efforts. Like Lady Macbeth, we all want to cry out and curse the spot and stain. Yet it is never gone.

The amazing declaration of Scripture is that the reason the Creator of the world became the Babe of Bethlehem was that he might make purification for human selfishness, that he might solve the insoluble problem, and wash away the UN-washable stain. The good news is that every one of us who has found Christ, who has come to him, and who follows him finds again and again that he has the power to cleanse us. He has the power to put away the guilt of the past, whether it is the past 50 years of life or the past five minutes of time. He has the power to cleanse it, and wash it away, and to set us on our feet again with a clean slate and a fresh page to write on every day, to live life again in the power and the grace of the living God. That is the greatest message of all. When he had made purification for sins (what agony, what terrible hurt is involved in that phrase), he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Jesus is Lord: this was the early creed of the Church and it is the creed of all who come to know him now. He has solved that desperate problem of human life; he is in control and in charge of all human events.

Father, thank you for the Lord of Glory. It is with very inadequate words that I seek to set forth the amazing wonder that he, this Lord of Glory, should give himself to come in the form of a helpless child and become a man, that he might die for me to set me free and make purification for sins. Thank you for this. I pray that I will never forget that I am a redeemed creature, that I have no value in myself, but have eternal value in the One who loved me and gave himself for me.