Holy God in a Rotten World

Earlier this year, my wife and I had the opportunity to travel to the Caribbean and visit with a friend who pastors in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The airport is located on St. Thomas, but he and his family live on the island of St. John. To get there, you must ride one of the numerous ferries that run between the islands. As you disembark from the ferry on St. John and leave the city, and head out towards the eastern part of island, among the curvy mountaintops, there is this picturesque pull-off that overlooks this gorgeous stretch of beach. This scenic overlook is so stunning they literally use pictures of the cove for postcards. The name of the beach is Coral Bay.

As we stopped the car and snapped photos with our phones, the preacher’s wife, sitting in the back-seat, sort of mumbled something. Climbing back into the car I asked her what she said. She replied, “that beach may look pretty, but when we get down there, you will discover it doesn’t smell pretty.” I was surprised by what she said, and to be candid with you, I didn’t fully believe her. After all, how could anything that looked that beautiful not be pristine in every way?

As we made our descent from the overlook and headed down to sea level, we rounded a curve and turned on to a road that runs parallel with the beach. Soon after our turn, a voice in the backseat said, “crack your window.” Well, neither I nor the other person in the front seat had enough sense to listen to her, and we rolled our windows all the way down. In an instance, the most indescribably horrid stench filled the car. Believe me when I say, I have been in some stinking environments in my life, and that was the worst. It was just awful. I mean awful.

It turns out, Coral Bay not only has a sanitation issue, but the beach is also plagued with something called, Sargassum Seaweed. I didn’t know this until we got home and I researched it further. But Sargassum seaweed is an algae that floats around in island size masses in the ocean. While serving as a habitat and food source for countless species, is also is a major problem for many beaches in the Caribbean. The hurricanes that swept through the Virgin Islands several years ago pushed thousands of pounds of seaweed into some of the coves and along the beaches. When this Sargassum begins to decompose, it emits a putrid odor that is akin to rotten eggs or sulfur.

As I was trying not to gag from the pungent smell, the preacher’s wife was in the backseat laughing herself silly; saying, “I tried to warn you … and I told you to only crack the windows!” It took several minutes of driving with the windows down to rid the car of the stench. It really is impossible to relate just how gross and grossly overpowering the odor was.

I tell you this story for this reason, it would serve us well to think much about what it was like for the sinless Son of God to leave the holiness of heaven and condescend to this putrid cesspool of a planet. The eternal Son of God left the breath-taking splendor of heaven to live and walk among sinful men. Jesus ferried from the heights of Eternal glory to the depths of human depravity. The King of Heaven distanced Himself from the worship of Holy Angels, to walk among rancid and rotten sinners.

Jesus was known as, “the friend of sinners.” They called Him this, because He met with, dined with, and befriended the dregs of society. Daily, he invested in the sloppy lives of those broken sinners around Him. Over and over, Jesus heard men use foul language and take God’s holy name in vain. He saw people staggering drunk. He observed sin and lewdness and debauchery on every street corner.

And He did this; the Son of God took on flesh and lived among sinners like us, so that we might one day enjoy the warmth and fullness of unfettered fellowship with God the Father. What love is this! What grace indeed! That Holy God would come and dwell on this sin-cursed rotten world in order to redeem fallen sinners!

Thinking back on that “stinking occasion” I mentioned earlier, it occurred to me – I really had no idea, just how bad that stench was going to be. But God the Son knew what He was in for. He knew what He was stepping in to. The stench of sin didn’t take Him by surprise. Jesus knew full well the foulness of our world, and yet love compelled Him to come anyway.

God robed Himself in the likeness of our flesh to live as a man and die as a man, in order that He might reconcile sinful men to Holy God. What a Savior!

Do you know Him?

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