Filthy rags

 

I remember the first time I heard Isaiah 64:6.  I don't remember the exact day or place, though it was likely as a child in Sunday School.  I know for sure I learned it the first time from the King James Version--

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."  

Because I was a child, I'm sure I thought simply as a child--anything we have to offer God is filthy dirty.  I imagined my dirty clothes after I rode my bike through the mud; or the dust cloth I used every weekend when I helped my mom around the house.  

A few years later,  imagine my shock when I heard--FROM MY PASTOR, FROM THE PULPIT--that these "filthy rags" were actually menstrual cloths.  I was still a child, but less enough so to understand what that meant.  The image of a personal, private, bloody cloth seemed infinitely worse than the dirty clothes or dusting cloth I had imagined it represented.  

As I became a grown woman,  I became a little defensive.  Of course, compared to a dust cloth, a menstrual cloth was worse, but was it The Worst?  Without being too crude, but crude enough to get my point across, what about...diapers?  Or toilet paper?  I mean, that actually seems much more universal and much, much more filthy.  

Because I trust God and His Word, I knew this imagery was not a mistake.  This example was not meant to be flippant or unnecessarily crude.  It definitely was not intended to target women as filthy.  There was something to think through and learn a deeper meaning.  So I spent much time dwelling on it (maybe too much time?) , and I finally got it.  

{Disclaimer--this next section is in no way intended to be a trigger for those who have experienced infertility or pregnancy loss.  I would never, ever bring extra suffering to such a painful, personal struggle.  This is used as an example in scripture at it's very base level.  Please reach out if I've caused any pain, so I can apologize personally and explain more thoroughly than I can in these few paragraphs.)

Righteousness.  What does that mean?  Jesus gives some examples of righteous acts in Matthew 6--giving to the needy, praying, and fasting.  All GOOD things.  All acts that have great value.  These should be identifying markers of a follower of Christ.  

But the verse in Isaiah says "OUR righteousness".  The things we try to do good on our own.  The blowing of the trumpet when giving, the praying on the street corner to be seen by others, the looking gloomy and disfiguring of your face while fasting.  Those are the filthy rags.  When we, as women, look down monthly at a menstrual cloth "filthy" with blood, it is exactly the same picture as us lifting up self-promoting acts to a holy God.--there is no life.  Life has not taken root, there will be no growth, there will be no birth. For all of our striving, we cannot produce life, no matter how hard we try.  

In Philippians 3, Paul outlines the times he's lifted his own righteousness--filthy rags-- to God.  He counts them as "dung" for the sake of Christ (There's our diaper/toilet paper words.  Too much?)  Paul knew--and through the moving of the Holy Spirit, teaches us--that his righteousness did not come from anything he could do, but only through faith in Christ.  

Jesus redeems our filthy rags.  He bought back our lifting up of "no life" by shedding His own blood in our place.  Jesus, who is our life, high and lifted up on our behalf.  Our "righteousness" set aside for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus my Lord, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. 

Jesus paid it all.  All to Him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain.  He washed it white as snow.