It’s Not Easy Being Clean

The body-cleaning aisle in the supermarket gives you more options than any other product.

Numbers 19:1-22

Reference: v.9 A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They are to be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin. (TNIV Bible)

Explore: There are so many different ways one can wash their hands these days.  There is the standard bar of soap and liquid soap that you use with water, then there are the more advanced types of cleaning agent in alcohol wipes, detol gels and sanitary sprays.  The body-cleaning aisle in the supermarket gives you more options than any other product.  Even when I went to a developing country and stayed in areas with no running water, I was able to keep my hands free from bacteria and germs by using a cleaning gel.

Application: When you compare our cleaning products today to what the Israelites had thousands of years ago as they moved around in the desert, we have truly come a very long way.  However, there is something therapeutic about the way they needed to wash themselves clean back then.  It was a spiritual cleansing as well as a physical cleansing.  I know that I don’t think twice about washing myself these days, and I would do a full body wash once a day, then would quickly lose count of how often I would wash my hands.  And yet the way the Israelites washed themselves seems to bring an inner cleansing as well as an outer washing.  We can’t wash away our emotions with soap and water, but it’s good to have our own rituals that we can go through when something happens to us like mentioned in this chapter.

Prayer: Lord, only You can wash us as white as snow.  We ask for cleansing from within so we can serve You more.  Amen.

What do you feel you need cleansing from?

 

cleaning, Numbers, ritual