Joshua Grubbs
And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.
Have you ever thought about all those times in the Bible that we read that someone grabbed a calf, or some other animal, and prepared it to give an offering or provide hospitality? It can easily be lost on us what this really means. We no longer live in an agrarian society and most of us have never prepared an animal from start to finish.
This was not the case for those living in the times we read about in the Bible. There was no drive-thru and they had to prepare all the food that they ate. Not only that, but all the Israelites were expected to bring sacrifices to the Lord for a variety of reasons and occasions. As I’ve said before and will say again before the Lord calls me home, take a spin through Leviticus sometime; trust me, it’s great! It can be easy to gloss over, but the Levites, the priests of Israel, could probably easily be mistaken for butchers!
So, am I saying we should have to do a bunch of dirty, unpleasant work so that we can be made right in the eyes of God? To steal a phrase from Paul, by no means! We can never earn our salvation because it is a gift freely given from God because of His deep, unfathomable love for His creation. But what I am saying is that as we are saved, renewed, changed, and seek to serve the Lord, we can expect it to involve some work.
The work of the Kingdom of Heaven is just that. Work. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty one way or another. Let’s think again of an average Israelite living in the first temple period (the time of the Old Testament before the exile in Babylon). Do you think that they got excited about the prospect of taking one of their cattle, which was hard to come by, traveling with that cattle all the way to the appointed sacrificial spot, then working to prepare that cattle? I would wager that they would have preferred some other instructions!
Thankfully Christ descended from His position of power to become fully man, live, die, and rise again for us. Amen! We can leave the cattle behind, but the need to live out our faith has not changed. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty.
I would love to just sit on the couch all day, read my books, and generally be selfish. But I am a new man, raised to life in Christ. I need to love my neighbor, even when I don’t want to. I need to sacrifice some of my comfort and resources, even when I desperately want to hoard them. I need to serve like Jesus served, washing the feet (usually metaphorically, but perhaps not always!) of those God has placed in my life.
It was commonplace in the Old Testament for the Israelites to have to get their hands dirty. It was commonplace for the early Church, empowered by the Spirit and living in the already, not yet world of our resurrected King Jesus to get their hands dirty, too. God expected, and even demanded, it. While the particulars look different, we should know that God’s demands are the same. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah’s words here are clear. The expectation isn’t a surprise.
We must be willing to get our hands dirty.
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