Fullers' Soap

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: Malachi 3:2 (KJV)

Sometimes Christianity isn’t fun. Not that it’s not good, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t fun. Now is one of those times.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve had a taste of what faith really is, just a taste.  That was good. It was an experience more precious than words could begin to describe. But it came with after-effects.

Of late I have come face-to-face with who I really am. Some of it isn’t very good. Okay, a lot of it isn’t very good. I won’t go into the boring, self-loathing details here…it’s bad enough that God knows what those pieces are. But I have found myself looking at my life through that sickening glass darkly and seeing things that just don’t belong.

Then on Sunday my pastor spoke about joy. That’s it! That’s what I’ve been missing! Overall I’m a pretty happy fella, but there hasn’t been much joy, especially as of late. I lie awake in bed and think of things in my life that just don’t work with a life of faith. And it’s weird – I’ve always been a bit introspective, but this time it’s different. It’s not intentional…the thoughts just come.

Then I read the first couple verses of Malachi chapter 3 and that part about fullers’ soap got me. Now, what exactly is "fuller's soap"? We don't use such a thing today, so the phrase is rather arcane, and to understand what it means we have to go back to one of God's favorite topics: sheep.

When you shear a sheep, you get fleece -- raw wool. And as you can imagine, it smells and feels like a sheep does -- which, overall, is not how you want to look and smell (no offense to sheep). So to use the raw wool for anything, the fuller would handle the wool.

The fuller is the guy who takes the filthy, dirty wool and washes it so that it gets really white and clean. He uses boiling-hot water, and soap which is extremely caustic. So what he does to the wool is not pleasant for him very much, but it is in fact much worse for the wool.  Often the wool would be beaten with rocks to really get the nasty smell, dirt, piece of farm debris, and non-wool stuff out of the fleece prior to spinning it into thread -- and then often it was done again to the thread when it was woven into fabric to make the cloth as tight and clean and presentable as possible.

So when God says that the Messiah is coming with "fuller's soap", He's not saying, "Jesus will make you wash your hands." he's saying, "you are disgusting and useless unless you are cleaned up by the Messiah."

It’s almost as though I am being scrubbed by this really, really strong cleanser…trying to agitate the dirt in me to what? …Repentance?  In my "prior Christian life", I thought I knew what things I needed to repent of.  They were the obvious things...pride, greed, etc.  But this time it's different.  Like Dante - midway in my life's journey, I had gone astray from the straight road and woke to find myself in a dark wood.  This time it's personal, real personal.  I find myself, maybe for the first time ever, looking at who I really truly am and there's a bunch I don't like.  Which, I suppose, means there's that bunch and maybe even more that God doesn't like.

But there is hope for Paul tells us "...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him."  2 Corinthians 5:17-18 (NLT)

Maybe that’s what repentance is: Christ and the Holy Spirit beginning the mysterious cleansing process by agitating those bits of soil deep down in the fabric of my life. That soil exposed and left for me to decide…