Dirty Laundry
Zechariah 3
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by.
And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.”
No one likes to do their laundry. It’s why the infamous bedroom chair exists. We throw things that are not that dirty on the chair thinking we will wear them again so that we can spare ourselves another load of laundry. Strangely enough, this text talks a lot about clothes and dirty laundry.
Prophets in the Old Testament often received visions from God which illustrated and revealed the way things really were. Zechariah the prophet receives a vision showing Israel’s current high priest, Joshua, standing before the LORD. But this vision, at least for Joshua, is more like a nightmare than a vision. Standing in front of a holy God with the accuser, Satan, trying to air his dirty laundry, literally and figuratively! The text describes Joshua’s clothes as filthy, but filthy doesn’t nearly begin to cover it. The word that is used in Hebrew is clothing that has been soiled by human excrement, feces! This isn’t a pair of jeans meant for the bedroom chair. This is some heavy-duty filth, folks.
What is most unexpected in the story, though, is that Joshua doesn’t clean himself up before coming into the presence of God. Instead, God is the one who gives him new, clean clothes. In fact, Joshua doesn’t say or do anything that would persuade God to cleanse him. It’s God’s idea and it’s God’s action. God sees a problem and he offers up the solution.
But what does Zechariah’s vision do for you? Well, it’s meant to reveal the way things really are for you too not just for Joshua, and it offers you hope that like Joshua you can be cleansed. Jesus has seen all your dirty laundry, the things we think of as not that dirty meant for the bedroom chair, and the stuff so dirty it’s meant for no one to see. The good news of the gospel says that there’s no stain, no sin, that can’t be washed clean by the blood of Jesus. The God who knows your dirty laundry is the God who also provides you with pure new clothes.
I think the reason that we hate doing our laundry is the same reason we hate doing the dishes. There’s something that is so defeating about something that you’ve just cleaned getting dirty and needing to be cleaned again. However, to be justified by God means that you have been made righteous; you have been made clean. Not just because you’ve been given a new outfit but because you have put your faith in the righteousness of Jesus. It’s a cleanliness that doesn’t stop on the outside; it cleans deep on the inside. It’s a kind of clean that doesn’t get soiled again. Christ’s righteousness and cleanliness is your righteousness and cleanliness. That’s what justification does for you. It gives you the righteous robes of Jesus Christ which don’t have to be washed again. These new clothes will never find themselves in need of renewed cleansing. No need to worry anymore about your dirty laundry.
