Getting Our Hands Dirty (Merry Christmas Part 1)

by Michelle Gee
A few months ago, Jon and I came across a man outside a market in town. He seemed desperate as he stood by his bicycle and frantically looked from one person to the next, and we were horrified to see that he, a grown man, had defecated himself. We approached him to see how we could help—as you can imagine, the smell was absolutely unbearable. As we spoke with the man, we could hear the embarrassment in his voice as he described his need to get home. We weren’t quite sure what we could do to help, and then asked if we had room in our car for him and his bike. We physically didn’t have the room, but I couldn’t help but feel relief and then disgust at my own reaction. In that moment, I realized, I had been more concerned about my own comfort and car than a human being created in the image of God. I wonder…if we would have had the room, would we have given him a ride?
 
We live in a culture that allows us plenty of excuses to say “no” in situations that are inconvenient for us or uncomfortable. We are independent, autonomous beings with the freedom and right to pursue pleasure at almost any cost, as well as guard our own wellbeing and happiness.  The more we understand the Gospel, however, these excuses vanish; we are confronted with the truth of a God who relentlessly pursues people.
 
Philippians 2:5-7says:  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
 
How scandalous is it to think that the God of the universe would humble himself to be one of us? What love and passion must have driven God to execute this plan. Knowing the darkness and brokenness of the world we live in, he still eagerly ran toward it in the only effort to save us. He became a human being clothed in filth—much like the man Jon and I met must have felt—and he did it joyfully (Hebrews 12:2—“looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”).
 
If we are to reflect Christ in word and deed to the world around us, what excuse do we have for not getting our hands dirty? We are co-heirs of a Kingdom that breaks into darkness and floods it with light, transforming what was once broken with the truth of Jesus Christ. At what costs are we willing to live this way? I want to challenge you…
 
What areas of darkness have you been avoiding out of inconvenience/discomfort?
How can you go toward them and flood them with light?
As the body, how can we encourage each other to engage with the dirtiest, most broken aspects of the world?