The Cleaner Man

Matthew 5:45 – That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (KJV)

The Word says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Strange as it may seem, this reminds me of a man from my youth. I never knew his name; we just called him "the cleaner man". Once a week, the cleaner man would come by and gather our clothes. He would return the clothes several days later cleaned and pressed.

Like the cleaner man, we are condemned to pick up much of the dirt of the world, merely because we live in it. Dirt, like rain, is not selective. Illness and death are not part of God's natural order. The bad things in this world are not choosy. God created a perfect world, but Satan tempted the first humans to corrupt it by bringing sin into the world. Being human, we are condemned to live in a sinful world. Yes, there are seemingly natural causes of illness and emotional problems. And good people do experience health problems. However, in a perfect world, these things would not exist. God did not create sickness and death. However, since the world is sinful, we, being in the world, experience the hardships.

Nevertheless, we have great hope. God sent Jesus to earth for a purpose similar to that of the cleaner man: not to clean our clothes, but to wash us white as snow from the inside out.

Jesus took all of our dirt upon himself. We live in a sinful world where bad things sometimes happen to good people. However, if we accept Jesus as our Saviour, we will someday stand in the presence of God cleaned and renewed by the blood of Jesus Christ. It is then we will live in a world where there is no pain, a world that has not been made dirty by sin. We will have a perfect body that never experiences pain, illness, or death. This is why Jesus came.

Prayer: Father, we are grateful for Jesus and his death on the cross. We stand before you as sinners, justified only by the blood of Christ. And we do repent and accept him as our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

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