The Sponge

I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again. I love Bible study class! Well, I love anything that pulls me deeper into God’s holy Word. Bible study is my favorite, though. The setting is quieter and calmer than Sunday morning worship service. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate being able to exert all my energy into praise and worship and the energetic preaching that happens on Sunday mornings. But sometimes, I fail to absorb it all. People coming in and leaving out, all the movement in the seats, music, prayer, presentations, sermons, offerings, and announcements can be a lot to grasp in an hour and a half service. I’ve left some of those 10 a.m. services saying, “Okay, Lord, was I totally focused on You?” But I always leave Bible study saying, “Yes, I got that!” See, in Bible study there is 1 focus – the Word of God. Questions get asked and answered in Bible study class. The slower pace leaves time to make a personal connection to the Word. Bible study is the sit-at-His-feet, lay-your-head-on-His-bosom experience of assembling ourselves together. It’s where God reveals secrets to those who desire to be close enough to hear His voice. There’s a crowd, but the atmosphere is about each individual getting to know the true Jesus.

My pastor is a gifted Bible study instructor. Recently, he walked us through a lengthy study of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John where we learned about the depth of God’s love – love so deep that it caused God to give His own life for us. He explained just how much God suffered for us to be able to have the opportunity to experience His love. The pure God, in whom there is no darkness or instability at all, birthed Himself into the world as a frail human. He experienced all the vulnerabilities and pains of humanity. The eternal God caused Himself to live in a body that was made mortal by the nature that causes us to sin against God. He came, not to commit sin, but to understand and empathize with our weakness toward sin. However, He didn’t come here just to get familiar with it; He came to deal with it. On the cross, Jesus heaved all of humankind’s wickedness into Himself, so much so that it became His identity. Then, He allowed His sin-body to be nailed, killed, and buried to forever do away with sin. He rose from the dead triumphant, leaving behind the consequence of sin, which is death.  This resulted in an opportunity, for those of us who receive what He has done, to accept His death as payment for the debt we owed for our offenses toward our holy God. Let’s face it, nothing we could have done would have ever left us totally pure of the iniquity that exists inside of us. A dash of deceit, a hint of pride, a trace of lust or selfishness – I am unapologetic in saying only a fool would deny that a lifetime of discipline cannot not eradicate our nature to transgress against God’s commands. It’s just in us, and God’s righteousness rejects sin. Yet, He loved us and desired for us to be with Him from now until eternity. We couldn’t be with Him in our sinful condition. So, God made the Way. He fixed our dilemma forever!

As my Pastor painted this picture in Bible study, the Holy Spirit of God began to do what He does best. He made the image of Jesus becoming sin, to do away with sin, so clear in my mind that I could do nothing but worship Him. Jesus was like a sponge. Yes, I imagined the Almighty God as a little ol’ Scotch-Brite, O-Cedar or whatever brand you fancy to help with that sink full of dishes. Now, I’ve made many messes and spills, so I know what sponges do. I just never realized how amazing they were. A dry sponge was always the remedy, but I never thought so far as to consider what the sponge was actually doing. Just by allowing it to come in contact with my mess caused it to absorb my spill into itself. It became completely wet, my spill was removed, and my countertop was left completely dry. Then, when it was done, the sponge was able to release all the water down a drain. And… Presto! My sponge soon became completely dry again. Woah!

So, here we were, with sin all in us, spilling out all over the place. God looked at us from heaven, saw the mess we were in and felt an urgent need to perform a cleanup. We were trying to fix it, covering ourselves with fig leaves, making promises to never sin again and what not, but it wasn’t working. Every time we’d clean up part of our mess, the sin in us would just make another mess somewhere else. The reason a sponge works is because it can pick up and hold what needs to be cleaned up. It’s not already in there. Have you ever tried to clean up a spill of water with a sponge that was already full of water? It doesn’t work. You just end up pushing the water around, never removing the spill and making a bigger mess in the process. That’s was us, trying to clean our own sin. We were so full of it, we just pushed around spilled deception with more lies, poor choices with poor excuses, selfish actions with selfish apologies, and never managed to reverse our impure state. Only something free from sin could remove our sin. That something, rather Someone, was Jesus.

He came sin-free, made contact with us and began cleaning up our sin. He looked us in the eyes, laid His hands on us and told us He was here to save us. From that moment, even before He made His final move to put the noose around sin’s evil neck to break it, He began removing the sin from those He encountered. He didn’t stop at sin either. He took away all that was plaguing us: hopelessness, depression, rejection, fear, low self-esteem, guilt, shame, disappointment, loneliness, and disease. He touched us and we touched Him, and our dirt was removed! But on the cross, in a display of ultimate triumph, Jesus didn’t deal with us one at a time. He went all the way back to the beginning. He saw Adam disobeying and rebelling against God, ashamed, hiding, kicked out of paradise, cursed and doomed to die. Jesus soaked it all up – the disobedience, rebellion, shame, deceit, rejection by God, the curse and eternal death. He looked forward to 2018 and saw you and me, and He soaked it all up. He looked as far into the future as the future will go, and He soaked it all up. He removed our sin by taking it into Himself, and He left us clean. Then, our Lord, full of sin, allowed His body to be wrung out on a cross. The Sponge was beaten, bruised and pierced to pour out the sin. He released the sin that He absorbed from us and was taken into a grave where He left it. There He laid and dried out. On day 3, He came out of that grave, sin-free again. It was like He never touched it. Just like a sponge, He was built to handle it. And handle it He did.

Key Scripture Reference: Luke 10:38-42, John 13:21-26, Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 John 2:2, James 1:17, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Colossians 2:13-15, 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, Isaiah 25:8-9, Hebrews 2:14-15, Colossians 1:12-14, Colossians 1:19-23, Romans 7:14-25, Hebrews 4:15-16, 1 John 2:1, Luke 5:17-26

Jesus’ Death: Matthew 26-27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, John 18-19

Jesus’ Resurrection: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20

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