Easter Clean 1 John 1:1–2:2

Grace, mercy and peace be with you, from God our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ, who rose to make us clean.

Easter clean is the title of our message today. We’re going to talk about how what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, cleanses us for a better life with Christ. 

True or False: Cleanliness is next to godliness. Well, it depends.

True or False: Cleanliness is next to godliness, comes from the Bible? Well, it depends. 

Is it a literal quote from the Bible? No. It became a popular phrase during the Victoria age. But it’s not a verse in the Bible.

Is the concept of cleanliness being next to godliness in the Bible? 

It depends… on what you mean by cleanliness. If you mean that washing your hands and having good personal hygiene makes you close to God, then no, that’s not Biblical.

Not that it isn’t a good thing to do. I think I’ve sanitized my hands more in the last 12 months then I have in all the previous months and years of my life.

But if you mean cleanliness as today’s Epistle uses it, then, yes, cleanliness is a godly thing. 

Verses 8-9 of our Epistle tell us that  8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The Bible uses many different terms and concepts to show us how Jesus has saved us. This gives us a better picture and deeper understanding of our salvation.

Words or concepts like: redemption or redeem, buying us back from sin, death, and the devil; justification or justify, declaring us righteous or not guilty in the court of God’s eternal law; ransom, similar to redemption, paying the price to secure our release from captivity or prison; propitiation, making things right with God; atonement, making amends for our wrong doing;  forgiveness, cancelling our moral debt, our failure to love God and others as we were created to do; 

keeping the covenant for us; and many more key concepts that explain how Jesus won our salvation, including, making us clean, or cleansing us of our sin.

Our Epistle says, 7 If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  

To understand what it means to be spiritually cleansed, it helps to understand the Old Testament cleanliness or purification laws. 

The Hebrew word for “clean” can also be translated as “pure”. Psalm 24:3-4 asks: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? (That is, the temple and sanctuary) He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands, meaning ritually clean, and pure heart, meaning spiritually clean.

This gets at the true purpose of the Old Testament cleanliness laws. Their primary purpose was not personal hygiene or physical health, but ritual and ceremonial status. 

Being unclean didn’t mean something was wrong or immoral. It symbolized the mundane and ordinary things of this world, in contrast to God, who is unique and extraordinary, and not of this world, as He says in Isaiah 44, Who is like Me… I know of none. 

Being ritually unclean meant that you weren’t allowed to enter the temple, nor to participate in the various religious ceremonies and ritual sacrifices. 

The reason was because of the personal presence of God in the temple. God is holy, so anything considered unclean couldn’t approach Him, or come near His presence. 

So the Israelites had to be ritually clean to come near to God, and enter His temple, which was, to them, a little piece of Heaven on earth, a holy place. 

What made people ritually unclean? Bodily discharge, childbirth, deep skin disease like leprosy, touching a dead body or carcass, and coming in contact with anyone or any creature or anything that was unclean. 

Most carnivorous, meat-eating animals, birds that scavenge, like vultures, shell fish, insects other than locusts, and rodents were considered unclean. 

Animals with a spilt hoof, and that graze for their food were considered clean; as were most birds, fish with fins and scales, and most locusts.

If you came in contact with something unclean, there were three ways for you to regain your ritually clean status. 

First was the passage of time. After awhile you were considered clean again. Second, was by ceremonial washing or bathing. And third, was by offering ritual sacrifices.  

Considering what a hassle the cleanliness laws were, and how much they complicated people’s lives, why did God establish them for His people?

God gave the Israelites the complex holiness code, to stand in contrast to many of the common customs and popular practices of the time. They were to be different than their neighbors because they were God’s special people, chosen for a sacred purpose, to be the people from whom the Messiah would come to save the world. 

Ultimately, all the ceremonial rules, rituals and sacrifices, pointed to Jesus, and His holy life, death and resurrection. The sacrifice of His holy life on the cross was perfect, and won our full forgiveness. 

Being completely forgiven, now there’s no need for us to have to keep the Old Testament rituals and ceremonies and sacrifices, including the purification ceremonies and sacrifices. The sacrifice of Jesus has purified us. Or as our Epistle puts it: the blood of Christ has cleansed us from all unrighteousness.  

On the cross, Jesus achieved the cleansing or forgiveness of our sins. Then, on the third day, Jesus proved it by rising from the punishment for our sins, rising from death. 

Easter proves that Jesus has made us spiritually clean, the kind of clean that matters most, Easter clean, we might say. 

Now we’re able to be in the presence of God, and not just safe and unhurt in His holy presence, but happy and blessed in His presence forever.

We longer have to worry about being ritually clean, because Christ has made us spiritually clean, which is what God has wanted for us all along, to have the kind of cleanliness and holiness, that we might be close to Him, now and forever. Jesus cleansed us to come close to God, and receive the blessings that can only be had and experienced in His holy presence, so close that He lives within us, His Spirit.

As the Old Testament sacrifices were symbolic, pointing to Jesus coming to save us on the cross, so the Old Testament washing ceremonies were symbolic, pointing to the Holy Spirit coming to us in Baptism, washing away our sins, giving us faith, and making us God’s dear children.

The kind of “cleanliness that is close godliness”, is the kind Jesus won for us, and the kind the Holy Spirit gives to us, the cleanliness of being forgiven, of having faith in the One who cleansed us, and having love, that we might do the good He helps to do. 

Sometimes the outside of us gets dirty as we work and play, but in Christ, the inside stays clean. 

When you’re a little kid, there’s nothing more fun to play in than a mud puddle.

My niece’s little boy was here for Easter, and after the service he was having great fun outside, picking up sticks… laying them straight... I’m sure he needed a bath that night.

It’s good for us to take care of ourselves on the outside, but even better is to be well taken care of on the inside. 

That’s why God gives us His Word, and His Sacraments, and the Absolution of our sins, to clean us up on the inside, so that with purer hearts and cleaner minds, we can serve and represent our holy God to our neighbors in this fallen world; that we can share His cleansing grace and His healing love; that world might know the kind of cleanliness that is truly next to godliness; the kind that results in what is good and right for us for all, and what honors and glorifies our extraordinary God.

May He keep your spirit and soul Easter fresh and clean, and may His peace guard your heart and mind, in Christ Jesus, who has made us clean for a blessed and glorious life, forever close to Him. Amen.