I grew up on a farm in Western Colorado,
and I followed my dad everywhere. One January morning I came with him to feed
the cattle, penned up to keep them close to the barn in those cold winter
months. I was five years old, dressed by my mother in a bright red snow suit.
Dad fired up our old Farmall tractor and hitched it to the
flatbed. He drove it over to the haystack and tumbled bales down onto it for
the cattle. I got to ride on the back for the short trip to the corral.
It had been a wet winter, and melting snow combined with the
natural alimentary output of the cows produced a thick layer of brown ooze. As
Dad slowly drove through the corral gate, the tractor lurched forward. I lost
my footing and landed in the “mud.” I sank down to the middle of my chest,
nearly buried in cow poop. It was one of the more disgusting episodes of my
life, made worse by the fact that Dad apparently found it hilarious.
That rude experience, wherein my snowsuit turned from red to
brown, makes me think of the Lord Jesus when He entered the human population.
One of the things I so admire about Jesus is that He always
loves righteousness and always hates sin. “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness”
(Hebrews 1:9a, ESV).
What must it have been like for Jesus to walk among His
sinful creatures—all of them so flawed by Adam’s fall and by their own? He
loved righteousness, and found none among the best of us. He hated wickedness
and found it everywhere.
Did He feel like He was sinking in filth? Did He long to shed
His human nature like clothes suddenly stained? Did He question the wisdom of
the Incarnation? Did He ever dream of changing course and abandoning the
redemptive plan because it was too caustic and too disgusting for
His soul?
How He continued, persevered unto death in the face of
revulsion for the wickedness He saw, I do not know.
I am so thankful to Him that He did. And that in loving
righteousness He imputed His to me.
