Hello,
Yesterday as I was driving out my drive way, I spotted a critter sashaying up the hill. As I neared it I got a better look at the black and white, long tailed visitor to our yard. A skunk! I know that there are skunks around us, their perfuming of the air gives them away, but you don’t often see them in the late afternoon as they are nocturnal prowlers. Generally, a skunk seen during the daylight hours is having some health issues.
So, when I got nearer to it, I had no desire to get out of my car to see what was going on with this skunk. I did not want to agitate it and then be the target of its aromatic defense system. When I arrived back home around 10:00, there was no sign or smell of the skunk, and likewise in the morning when I got up. I am hoping that it wandered off of my property to make a lengthy visit to one of my neighbors.
Of all the critters that roam around our house, skunks are the least welcome. I don’t want to be the recipient of their spray. But even more so, I don’t want them to turn their pungent affections toward my dog if he should happen upon one. I have heard that it is hard to rid one’s self of a skunk’s smell, but even harder to rid one’s dog of it. Tomato juice baths….several of them, I hear is what it takes. So stubborn is the “eau de la skunk” that I read of a person who bought a brand new Corvette Stingray, and on the way home hit a skunk, and the skunk spray so infiltrated the car that the owner had to junk his prized car. Skunks are unwelcome around my house because of the stench that flows from them.
There are some who question the relevancy of the Christian faith in today’s world. What is so important about a guy who died on a Jerusalem cross, centuries ago in order to forgive the sins of the world? It may have been relevant to those scientifically ignorant, sociologically backwards, and cosmologically simple-minded people, but can the same thing be said about its relevancy to us, scientifically astute, sociologically progressed, and quantum physics aware people?
My answer to the ongoing relevancy of the Christian faith in our world finds its foundation in one thing: my nose. You see….sins stink. Sometimes folks get into debates over whether the entirely myopic things that we do (sins) are really all that bad, or even bad at all….and the truth is that often those things are not massive in their evil, or maybe even questionably evil to differently minded people. But have you ever noticed that when people are doing such debating, they are holding their nose? Their eyes might lead them to question the relevancy of concern about sins, but the noses leave no doubt. As the Bible says, the wages of sin is death, there is a death stench to sin that matches the stench of a skunk.
And therein, in my mind, lies the relevancy of the Christian faith in our world, today. The stench of sin. The motivation that turns everything toward one’s self (that is what sin is) kills off our relationship with others, and even more importantly, our relationship with God. And that death stinks! Period….it doesn’t matter how much sin, or how bad the sin….it still stinks!
When the Bible talks about being washed in the cross-born blood of Jesus, it is speaking of a super-charged tomato juice bath that doesn’t just cut through the oily glom of sin, but also cuts to our hearts and destroys the producer of that smudge so that henceforth that putrid oil can be produced no more. Sin stinks. Jesus’ blood has the power to take away sin. The stench is gone….people can live with one another, people can live with God. That is the relevancy of the Christian faith.
If you find yourself wondering about the relevancy of the Christian faith, unpinch your fingers from your nose, and take a deep breath….and I think that you will instantly come to see just why the blood of Jesus is as relevant today as it was on the day that Jesus died on the cross.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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