Food in Your Teeth

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Have you ever had a bit of food on your face and not realized it? You walk around talking with people and they can’t stop staring at that seed of broccoli caught in the corner of your mouth or that chunk of spinach on your front tooth. How embarrassing! Then, finally, a good friend whispers in your ear that there’s food on your face. With gratitude for your friend, your excuse yourself and take care of the situation.

How many of us walk around with sin caught in our teeth and not realize it? Or perhaps we’ve justified or excused the sin and are in denial of what others can see. Maybe we say, “Well, everyone else has stuff in their teeth too so I’m just fitting in.” The problem is sin is sin and it messes us up and keeps us at a distance from God. It doesn’t matter what we think about it or how we justify it. Just like gravity is gravity, sin affects everyone.

The psalmist goes to the only one who can accurately point out, seek out and root out our core problems. God alone can search our hearts, our thoughts, our messed up ways. We can’t even do it ourselves very well. We need God’s Word to do it. It’s called the Law and hurts, embarrasses and points out the obvious and the not-so-obvious pieces of sin. So there we sit, in all our shame with the food all over our faces and stuck in our teeth. What can we do? Nothing.

But Jesus can, has whispered and will continue to whisper in your ear. “I forgive you. I will wash your face. I washed the disciples’ feet. I will wash your face and make it clean and presentable.” In baptism, Jesus washes our face and makes us clean. In the confession and forgiveness of sins from other Christians, he washes our face and makes us clean. In His Supper, through the body and blood, he washes our face and makes us presentable. Through those things, he leads us in the “way everlasting.”

Heavenly Father, thank you for knowing all things and knowing what’s in our hearts. Thank you for knowing what’s there, even when we don’t want to see it. Above all, thank you for your Son, who came down to walk among all of us with food on our teeth and on our chins. Thank you for washing us clean and making us presentable before you. In Jesus’ name, amen.