Mess Is Contagious, So Is Healing

We were on a road trip to Portland to visit friends, back when our kids were little, and we stopped at a Starbucks before getting back on the freeway. Like parents do, we asked, “Does anyone need to go to the bathroom?” The answer was a confident no.

So we got back on the road, and of course about fifteen minutes later, Aidan suddenly panics. He was doing the potty dance shouting, “I have to pee right now. Right now, Mom!” He was in full emergency mode. And there was nowhere to stop.

So my husband says, “Quick! Hand him a cup.” So I did.

But instead of going neatly into this cup, Aidan’s pee sprayed upward… hit the ceiling of the car… and then rained down on all of us. A pee shower everywhere. On our hair. On our clothes. On the seats. 

Suddenly Aidan’s mess… was all of our mess.

And isn’t that life? Either someone’s mess got on us and now we’re getting it on other people, or we’re doing everything we can to keep other people’s mess from getting on us at all.

We learned early on that mess is a contagion. One kid comes to school with lice and now we’ve all got it. A bad mood walks into the house and suddenly everyone’s walking on egg shells. Someone lies and now you can’t trust a thing that person says. Sometimes the mess is small. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime.

A man who hurt me as a child contacted me a few years ago. I saw his name in my inbox and about panicked. He said he wanted to meet. Weeks later, I found myself on a park bench in Greenlake sitting next to a man my mother and I fled from, and here he was 30 years later apologizing for how his hurt hurt me.

This pain had messed with me my entire life. Wounded people wound people. We collide with messy people whose mess messes with our lives. Their sin, anger and dysfunction got wiped all over us and here we are wiping it on the people we love. And once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere.

We don’t have to go far to realize that our world is a hot mess—wars, hostility and division, rising suicide rates, an anxiety epidemic, the opioid crisis, violence, bullying, broken families.

Someone else’s mess got all over them, and now their mess is getting all over others. 

But what if that doesn’t have to be the end of the story?

In John 13, we see Jesus step right into mess on purpose. He knew what was coming. He knew torture, pain, and the cross were hours away. And what does He do?

He gets up, wraps a towel around His waist, and begins to wash feet. Feet covered in dirt. Feet that would run away from Him. Feet that would betray Him.

Jesus kneels in the middle of our mess.

He doesn’t avoid it.
He doesn’t step around it.
He doesn’t wait for it to be cleaned up.

Jesus moves toward mess. And when He does, people change.

I mean, think about it. Jesus went out of His way to meet the woman at the well, who had a messy reputation and a damaging thirst, and by the time they were done hanging out, she was a changed woman changing her city.

Jesus went out of His way to run into the tombs where the man who was naked, cutting, and crying out lived, isolated and chained up. And by the time Jesus got done with him, Scripture says the man was “dressed and in his right mind.”

And what about the woman hemorrhaging? She had been bleeding for 12 years and was supposed to stay outside of community, as she was considered unclean. But she doesn’t. She knows Jesus is coming, and despite her own mess, she fights through a crowd to get to Him. And when she sees Him, she reaches for the hem of His robe, and power goes out from Jesus’ body and heals her. He then turns around and not only enters her messy story, He calls her “daughter”, and she tells Him her “whole truth.’

Friend, we have a beautiful Lord who enters mess. So I want to invite us to do two things:

Let Him enter your mess. You might be keeping Jesus out of some rooms in your house and heart, but I encourage you to let Him come into all of them. He can handle whatever dirt, hoarding, secret, shame, anger, doubt, or fear you have going on. Not only can He handle the mess, He can help clean it up. And face it, you keeping Him out isn’t helping get rid of your mess. Let Him in today. You can simply invite Him into something messy. Tell Him, like the hemorrhaging woman, the mess that is messing with you, and ask Him to cleanse you, forgive you, help you, heal you.

Dare to enter other people’s mess. Not in a way that is going to cause you to stumble or sin, but take some of the healing God has done in your life and bring it into contact with the hurting people you collide with. Pass on some of that hope. Give away some of that love. If God’s people push away hurting people, how will they know Jesus can handle their mess and heal it? We get to be the ones who carry Jesus’ hope and healing into the lives of the people who need it most.

Mess may be contagious.

But so is healing.

Instead of getting our mess all over other people, let’s be people who get our healing all over others.