Ok, the coast is clear...

Image by eiratansey via Flickr

Did I say that I love to wash dishes? I did. So now I'll have to explain.

I like any job that lets me take it from chaos to order, from messy to neat, or from dirty to clean. There's just so much satisfaction in such a process! Washing dishes (by hand of course) is the prime example. The used dishes are a dirty, disorderly pile of germs and useless clutter, but within short order can be transformed into a ready stack of practical, hygienic utensils.

The real value in all of this for me is the analogy potential. I think about washing, and what it means, and what it means for me. Washing, according to merriam-webster(definition 6a in the link below), is separating.

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wash

When I apply soap and water to a dirty plate the stuck on foodstuff gets separated, and goes down the drain. So as I wash, I think about how Christ separates my sin from my spirit! It is said that we are 'washed in the blood'. My first thought there has always been 'yuck!'. Wouldn't all that blood just make you stained red? And that's not very clean. But when an ore is 'washed' in a chemical bath the valued mineral is separated out while the washing agent flows away with the waste.
The same holds true for we who submit to being 'washed in the blood'. It is only the shed blood of the sinless Savior that has the capacity to separate the dirt of my sin from the image of God created in me. The blood doesn't just pour over me and soak me till I'm stained red; it does a separating, and thus saving, work in me that makes me new and prepared to go into God's presence.
So yeah. I like to wash dishes. But I would also like you to wash the dishes!