Can you hear the shower running?

I don’t remember why, as children, we liked to run around barefoot so much. We had shoes, of course, and I wore them when I had to (school, etc…), but often, especially in the summer, if I didn’t need to put them on, I didn’t put them on. Maybe it was for a simple reason, like avoiding the certain delay that would have caused in getting to adventure at hand, or maybe it was just being lazy…, or perhaps it was some avant-garde artistic expression. But, whatever the reason, the result was always the same. I often had dirty feet.

Getting dirty didn’t bother me, of course. I was a boy growing up in the seventies, when not only could we run around the neighborhood and get dirty, we wanted to run around the neighborhood and get dirty. It bothered mom, though. For some incomprehensible reason, she didn’t want me to be dirty. (She was cruel that way.) My bit of parental wisdom that I get to share is, “As my mother always used to say, ‘Go take a shower!’”

I recall one evening when I was about 10 years old, my mother had guests over to the house. As it neared my bedtime she told me to go take a shower. About 20 minutes later I got ready for bed and went to say goodnight to her. She asked me, “Did you take a shower?” I told her, of course I had, for I was an obedient boy. Her next question shocked me, though. She asked, “Are you sure?” Didn’t she know that I was obedient? Hadn’t she heard the shower running for 10 minutes? What could that question mean? I replied to it with the only reply possible, “Yes.” Then the shock turned to horror, when she followed my assurance with the demand, “Show me your feet.” Now I was thoroughly confused. Why could she possibly want to see my feet? Had she lost her mind? I satisfied her adult quirkiness and showed her my feet. It was then that I was introduced to the possibility that the ignorance we assigned to our parents may not have been as deep as we had thought. For there, in front of both of us, and in front of the curious and, obviously, deranged, eyes of her guests were my feet, my covered-with-a-thick-coating-of-Dallas’-finest-dirt feet. How could she possibly have known that I hadn’t actually taken a shower, when the running water would have been heard throughout the house? But, she did know.

I thought of this story when I was reading, in Exodus 30, about the bronze lavers that God told Moses to make so that the priests could wash their hands and feet (vs. 17-21). They were to wash every day as they were entering the tent of meeting, which was the tabernacle, or their temporary temple, as they were in their period of wandering in the wilderness before settling in their promised land. They could not enter the tent of meeting, for prayer and worship, without being cleansed from the sins and offenses that every man contracts daily, in brokenness,

“So they shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they will not die; and it shall be a perpetual statute for them, for Aaron and his descendants throughout their generations.” (Ex. 30:21)

Just as for those priests, and perhaps even more, sin is part of our daily lives. We have heard this often, and I think that most of us believe this fully, but I also think that it’s very difficult to live like we know this. By that I mean that we can easily point to obvious sins that we commit, whether “large” (adultery, stealing, etc…) or “small” (lying, taking undue advantage of someone, etc…), but the thoughts of our heart are more difficult to know as sin. Paul gives a thorough setting of how sin is evident in us:

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:17-21)

Even in this are some things which we would agree to be noticeable (and some things irrelevant today, sorcery…), but many of the sins in this list can manifest in large ways, i.e., “sensuality” in adultery, as well as in small ways, i.e., “sensuality” in a passing lustful thought. We should especially pay attention to a key wording in Paul’s list, “and things like these.” That phrase extends the list to anything that is remotely related – a very long list, indeed.

Though, while we may categorize sins as “large” or as “small,” God does not so distinguish these. To Him, a sin is a sin, and are all displeasing to Him, and any of which would make us unclean before Him. We, like those priests, are polluted by our offenses. And, we cannot be pure before Him without being cleansed of these.

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?

            And who may stand in His holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

            Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood

            And has not sworn deceitfully. (Ps. 24:3-4)

The Great News is that we have a cleansing water available to us, our Living Water, Jesus Christ, who cleanses us. For this, Matthew Henry says, it is “our own fault if we remain in our pollution.” Jesus even told us that He will, and wants to, clean us, and that without us letting Him do that we will not be able to enjoy a relationship with Him,

Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” (John 13:8)

For me, it boils down to this - when I am told to take a shower, I need to take it. I need to wash off my offenses from my dirty feet, and doing that means that I need to look closely upon myself to find the dirt. I won’t be clean if I just claim to have showered. But, whatever reason I might have had for not wanting to actually take a shower as child, I am no longer a child. The shower is no longer the focus. He takes care of that, He will wash me. The focus now is being clean.

Now, before going to bed each night, I look at my feet, and I long for the Shower.

So, yes, mom, I took my shower.