It is proverbial that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’   And while no one can deny the power of illustration, a picture without a word to explain it is worthless.  Words have a level of precision that the ambiguity of pictures can never attain.  We call pictures, illustrations, for just that reason.  They adorn or clarify words, but never replace them – a fact lost on the author/illustrators of instruction manuals.  Words have been replaced with undecipherable instructo-glyphs.  Yet no decoder ring or Rosetta Stone can be found in the packaging.  

Pictographic laundry care labels are equally mysterious, especially for men, who already struggle with the basic idea that more than one load is ever needed.  Left to our own devices, all our clothes would be two sizes too small and a dingy, grey shade of pink.  Men are by nature insensible to the significance of laundry care. 

But any man who has loved and lived with a woman recognizes the importance of making this important.   You only get one, or maybe two, chances at shrinking your wife’s perfect fitting top before you tempt her to keep a record of wrongs.   So men, take time to learn the laundro-glyphic arts and treat the sorting and laundering of clothes with utmost care.  Because how you care for your wife’s laundry is directly related to your care for your wife.

This principle has an important analog in spiritual life as well.  Because as complicated as laundering our clothes may be, we are often most confused about the cleansing of our souls.  For all its simplicity, we often over-complicate the gospel in our anxiety about our condition before the Lord.  We impute the power of cleansing to ritual and pious works, rather than the gracious initiative of God.  

The Reformers spilled considerable ink clarifying that means of grace, the word, worship, sacraments, and prayer are effective only when faith is operative.  A faith given by the Holy Spirit in effectual calling.  Not a faith produced mechanically by unaided ritual or human understanding.  John Calvin and Henrich Bullinger spent a decade debating the efficacy of the means of grace.  Bullinger was concerned not to attribute to any creaturely elements or actions what originated only from the work of the Holy Spirit.  And Calvin was concerned not to minimize the significance of the ordinary means of grace appointed for diligent use by Christians.

We can feel this same tension in the rituals and sacrifices outlined in Leviticus. But Leviticus 14 brings clarity to the relationship between means of grace and spiritual cleansing.   The spectrum of ritually defiling skin diseases was devastating.  When someone was declared ‘unclean’ they entered a life of grief and isolation.  The priestly instructions in Leviticus 13 dealt only with diagnosis, not treatment.  No cure is offered.  No plan of care defined.  No therapy recommended.  No medicine prescribed.   The leper is offered no therapeutic hope.  

Then Leviticus 14 outlines the response of sufferer, priest, and community to God’s gracious healing of the leper.   Ritual, washings, and sacrifices are commanded to declare ritual purity of the cleansed leper.   But none of these are the source of the cleansing.  They are reflexive.  They pointed to a God’s grace.  They declared to the community that God heals, God restores, God cleanses.  And they removed any barrier to religious or social acceptance for the one cleansed. 

In all the discussion of birds, cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop it would be easy to make too much of the ritual.  To think that it, along with the washings and the sacrifices are some magical, mechanical cleansing process.   But cleansing only ever comes by the grace of God.   All the means of grace that attend it, are in one way or another reflexive.  They are given to celebrate and instruct us in the gracious work of a gracious God.  To express faith in promises made and promises kept.

This week we conclude our examination of ‘ritually defiling skin disorders’ with the instructions from Leviticus 14 to the priests, the sufferer, and the community about how to respond when a leper is healed.   And we see how ritual, washings, and sacrifices declare the gracious work of God that heals, restores, and protects the sufferer.  And by way of type and antitype, we learn that God brings healing, restoration, and protection from an even more infectious, isolating, and incurable condition, our own sin. 

Join us as we examine Leviticus 14 and consider the true power of God’s appointed means of grace and why it is important that we be both spiritual and religious.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.