Wednesday, September 23, 2020

“Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51: 7. New Living Translation) 

                Powerwash! I needed a Powerwash last week.

                No, I wasn’t taking my car through a carwash nor was I using a high powered spray to clean my driveway (which by the way I think is a pointless waste of time and good, clean water). I haven’t installed a new more powerful shower head in the bathroom.

                My Chrome book/mini-computer began not to cooperate with me. Among other things, it wouldn’t download Facebook or Messenger. Oh, the horror! Being the highly competent techie that I am – not – after trying a number of possible remedies, all of which failed of course, I took it into my good friends at Staples.

                After their initial examination, they recommended the Powerwash. It is a setting by which the current operating system is wiped out and replaced with the same but working operating system. That’s what they did for me. I lost a couple of things but in about a half hour I was up and running again. Thanks to Powerwash.

                I would really like to apply a Powerwash to the year 2020; wouldn’t you? Let’s just reboot the whole damnable year. It isn’t worth saving. I want a do-over. A fresh beginning. Wipe it out of our memory banks.  Somebody hacked into the year and literally sent us a virus. It’s time for a Powerwash – clean up this mess and let’s have a better operating system up and running.

                But I also am thinking that sometimes our lives could use a good Powerwash, too. Perhaps that is the real meaning of repentance. But I know that throughout my life there were so many things I am sorry for or regret or shouldn’t have done or failed to do or said in anger or should have done differently or made better choices, that I would like to erase those bits and have a clean slate. I have had more than my ample share of good things, too.  I don’t want to lose those memories but I will take a Powerwash just the same.

                Repentance is a start.  But atonement is the religious word for the gracious, powerwash gift of God’s Love which cleans the human heart, spirit and soul.  No wonder it is compared to a second birth.  It is God’s fresh claim on our lives, to help us to put our lives back in good and proper order. We are infused with a new operating system, one that leaves the junk behind and restores love, joy, peace and harmony. This redemption helps us reconnect to those good applications that make life more livable and complete. God helps us to forget and let go of the past, find forgiveness and reconciliation and  give us a re-boot  - not just in the backside but fresh opportunities to live a better and wholesome life. Some might label that as righteousness.

We are made right by God’s Love, Grace and Mercy.

Now that is what I would call a Powerwash.

            “Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
                scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
            Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
                set these once-broken bones to dancing.
            Don’t look too close for blemishes,
                give me a clean bill of health.
            God, make a fresh start in me,
                shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.” (Psalm 51: 7-10, The Message Bible)

 Dale