Salvation is a messy business.
Forget about the tidy boxes
Of rules and rituals.
To follow Christ doesn’t mean
Strapping a Bible to our back
And pondering the universe
From the comfort
Of a cushioned pew.
It is not three points and a poem
Where we pray, walk the aisle
And get dunked, sprinkled and registered.
We won’t find Salvation
Listening to droning
Exclamatory expositions
Of proper, passive, practical performance,
Or compliant, conspicuous, conforming comportment.
 
No, it means that our eyes
Are finally opened.
Our vision clears
Revealing the reality
That we live in the sewage
Of our own creation.
Nothing is more difficult
Than placing our own souls
Under the unfiltered lens of a microscope
Seeing the waste for what it is
And know that we are the cause.
We are the gardeners of the carnage.
What we once found to be
The fragrant fanciful fog of incense
Created by our thirst for power
And our love of self,
Our castles and fortunes
Built on the backs
Of the less fortunate,
Now becomes the stench
Of sulfur and rotten eggs
As we become aware
That all that we valued
Was never valuable in the least.
 
Salvation is allowing God
To rip open our hearts
Exposing the cesspool
That we have engineered
In our constant search
For self-worth,
And by doing so,
Releasing the vile stench
Into the air
So that Christ Jesus can wash
The filth away,
Remove the rot and ruin,
With His very own blood.
 
He simply can’t make us clean
If we refuse to see the
Mud and grime,
The garbage we have allowed
To invade and fill
The space in our soul
Reserved as a dwelling
For the Holy Spirit,
A temple made by
and for the abiding of…
God.
God in us.
God in a relationship with us.
God dwelling in us.
 
The cross was not simple.
The cross was not a joy ride.
The cross was not spectacle.
The cross was never meant
To be viewed from a distance.
It is a dark, filthy, painful, deep cleaning,
In your face, up close and personal,
Scrub our hearts with steel wool.
It is an Invasion of our soul,
Where Christ climbs
into the sewer with us
And rips open our heart
To do the dirty work
That only He can do.
 
He wades into the wickedness that is us,
A place unfit for any king,
Much less the savior of humankind,
To clean us out and set us free.
To expose our filth
For what it is
And show us
How we are meant to be…
How we can be…
How we should be…
The Children of God.
 
I kid you not,
Salvation is messy business,
A process that should
Never to be sanitized
Nor devalued,
Never to get lost
In the hoopla of religion,
Sanctimonious proclamations,
Or the vacuum of pretense.
Its no walk in the park,
No bed of roses,
No day at the mall.
It is a raw, ugly, gruesome,
Extremely difficult,
Turning of the soil,
Casting of the fertilizer
Act of completely, committed contrition,
Where the breath of God
Breathes into our vile souls
And starts cleaning house.
 
The result of that process
Is something amazing,
Beautiful, extraordinary, emotional,
Uplifting, walking on clouds,
And way beyond deep…
We become a temple
Where God is welcome,
His presence treasured.
 
We become a vessel to be used,
A vessel that can make a difference in others.
There is nothing in the nature
Of humankind on this planet
That compares to a soul
Washed and cleansed by God,
Where the stench is replaced
By the fragrance of incense,
The darkness replaced
With abundant radiance
The filth replaced
With values instilled
By our heavenly father,
Where our self-love, self-indulgence, and self-gratification
Is replaced with a desire
To serve our God
By serving the souls around us.
 
Yes, salvation is a messy business.
What an amazing gift from God!

Rev Walt