Dirty Footprints

Do you ever watch the way fall leaves swirl in the wind?
They are part of an autumn dance.
They seem to move to an silent symphony.
Beautiful crescendos and diminuendos.

The leaves, often find their way into my garage at the end of their autumn dance.
The leaves in my garage find their way into my house.
They are crunched and ground beneath feet of various sizes.
Particles of fall color adhere to soles of shoes and pepper the path from garage to kitchen.

Soon the trees will be totally bare and the colors will be a memory.

Many things get stuck on the soles of our shoes.
The debris gets carried inside whether we want it to or not.
Mud, road salt in the winter, and pebbles of all sizes find their way in the house.
They don’t belong there.

When my children were young, it was such a privilege to teach them about the Lord.
I tired to come up with object lessons to help make things clearer.
I remember one summer afternoon, I set out to “show” them the Gospel.
I had read a devotional in a book that I tried to demonstrate on our driveway.

Everyone was barefoot.
There was a plastic tub filled with baby powder.
Two lines were drawn about four feet apart.
They were supposed to step in the baby powder and walk from one line to the next.
The only directive: They could not get any baby powder on the driveway.

I remember the way they tried to work out this problem on their own.
Can I jump?
Can I run over here on the grass and hop over there to the other side?
There was pointing and guessing, but everything they suggested came up short.

It was impossible to walk across without getting powder on the driveway.
Or was it?

When they ran out of options and guesses, I went into the garage.
I pulled out a cardboard cross that I had made from an old box.
I laid the cross over the space between the two lines.
The cross bridged the divide.

I remember squeals of delight as they stepped in the powder and stepped on the cross.
They were able to get from one side to the other without getting powder on the driveway.

When they were on the other side, I asked them to tell me what they saw.
Footprints. Our dirty footprints are all over the cross.

We stood there on the driveway, looking at the dirty cross.
I began to explain.

This is what Jesus did for you and me.
We are separated from God because of our sin.
It is a great divide with no way to cross over on our own.
We can try to come up with ways to get across by ourselves, but they all come up short.

No matter where we step, we bring the debris of our sin with us.
We are on one side and God is on the other.
God cannot allow the dirt of our sin anywhere near Him.
He is too holy.

But God loves us and had a plan that would bring us back to Himself.
He sent His own Son Jesus to die on the cross.
All of our dirty sin was placed on Jesus.
We have to trust that Jesus is the only way to get back to God the Father.

Everything else falls short.
Nothing else can remove the dirty footprints of our sin that we leave behind.
Jesus is the Way.

Jesus is covered with our dirty sin, so we can be clean.
Now, we have a Way back to God the Father.

I remember we all stood there looking at the clean driveway and the dirty cross.
We were quiet in our Holy Moment.
One by one, they were able to point out their own footprint on that cardboard cross.
The Gospel came alive on our driveway.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all men… (1 Timothy 2:5,6)

One Mediator who bridged the great divide between us and God.
The God-man, Jesus Christ, who took our dirty sin upon Himself, so we can be clean.

Do you see the cross?
Dirty for clean.
We have a way back to the Father.
The Way is a Person.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.