Cleaning Week

I both dread the week between Christmas and New Year's and look forward to it. Traditionally, this is the week I use to clean the house thoroughly after the holidays, putting life back in order for the new year. I believe it's important to begin something strong. I like to set the tone for a a new year by being ready for whatever may come. Whether the year brings happy events or tragic events, or, like most years, some of each, I want to meet those events with a feeling of being prepared. And that is really what this annual cleaning process is all about. It weeds out the old, the dirty, the unused, the unnecessary, the outdated parts of our lives. It makes room for growth, change, expansion and fresh, new experiences in the new year. Of course that cleansing process can be tedious, boring, tiresome and sometimes emotionally painful. But, good things don't come easily, and a sense of preparedness is a good thing, so what should I expect?

This year, due to the extraordinarily pleasant weather we are experiencing, I threw in some general yard maintenance, which brought my husband on-board with a greater level of enthusiasm.

Of course, any time we think of cleansing in the physical world, it is only a short step to making the spiritual comparison. Confession of sin and a repentance that is committed to change are the "cleansing" processes that we must perform in order to be prepared, properly, for whatever may come, spiritually speaking. We must weed out the outdated opinions, the dirty, filthy prejudices, the unused love that should be spent lavishly on others, the unnecessary opinions we adopt without good reason, the old habits that keep us bound to addictions.

As we do in our homes, so also we do in our spiritual lives. We spot clean and surface clean on a daily basis, to keep things liveable. We do laundry and wash dishes and vacuum and sweep. But, once a year, it is good to move furniture, wash window coverings, clean baseboards, reorganize storage areas. It keeps us honest and aware of what we are really working with. In the same way, New Year's resolutions can be a way of inspecting the spiritual state of affairs, doing a deep cleaning and reorganizing and facing the new year in an honest state of mind, a state of mind that is truly aware of what I am working with--both good and bad, as I face a new year.

God understood the importance of the physical/spiritual connection. Leviticus 23 describes the seven festivals that occurred during the Hebrew calendar year. Jewish New Year, called Rosh Hashannah, takes place in late September or early October. This was followed, ten days later (Numbers 29:7), by The Day of Atonement, called Yom Kippur. This was the day when all the sins of all the people in Israel were confessed and ceremonially placed on a scapegoat, which was sent out into the wilderness.

"As the goat goes into he wilderness, it will carry all the people's sins upon itself into a desolate land. This is a permanent law for you, to purify the people of Israel from their sins, making them right with the Lord once each year." Leviticus 16:22,34 (New Living Translation)

Each spiritual festival was accompanied by thorough physical cleansing and preparation. Christians today are probably most familiar with the Jewish practice of ridding their homes of all leaven (yeast) before the Passover celebration in the spring. The leaven (yeast) represents sin that must be cleaned out of our lives (1 Corinthians 5:8), but also looks back to the Hebrew's midnight flight from Egyptian slavery, in which the Hebrew people did not have time to let their loaves of bread rise overnight. (Exodus 12:17-20,39)

I look forward to the clean, organized home, yard and shed on the side of the house we will have in a few days. In the meantime, back to work...!

--Posted by Mama O.