Engage the Mess: Be Like Pigpen, Enjoy the Mess!

If you remember the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz, you are probably familiar with Charlie Brown, his beagle Snoopy, and the rest of the gang. But do you remember Pigpen? While traveling everywhere with his own dust storm, he was always confident and happy, treated others well, and only looked for the same from them. While some of the other characters looked at Pigpen with disdain, Charlie Brown was the only kid in the comic who accepted him unconditionally for who he was. I like that picture. We are all a bit messy in our own way, and not just on the outside. Yet there is one who accepts us for who we are and who is okay with the mess.

Jesus accepts us just as we are when we come to him. We don’t have to clean up and be presentable, whatever that looks like, to be accepted. We only need to come to Him in faith and repentance, and He will make us clean. The prophet Isaiah wrote, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18). Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

When we come to Jesus, He accepts the dust cloud of dirt, mistakes, sin, and the mess we created. Yet He doesn't leave us in our mess; He cleans us through His sacrifice on the cross. Though dirty, we shall be clean like fresh white snow or pure white lamb’s wool. And there is joy in the mess. Jude tells us that Jesus presents us blameless (the mess has been cleaned up) before the presence of His glory with great joy! (Jude 24). Jesus sees through the mess to what we can become through the transformational power of the Gospel, and He has great joy! Can we look at others in the same way? Or do we, like Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and the rest of the Peanuts, only see the dust cloud and the dirt?

To enjoy the mess is not to accept sin or to excuse problematic or unhealthy behavior. It is to see others as Jesus sees them and to engage with them so that He can deal with the mess. Our culture, with an ever-increasing sense of individualism and entitlement, tells us there are no moral absolutes. Our post-truth culture proclaims that the individual decides what is true and acceptable, and only the individual! Yet Scripture teaches us something different. It teaches us that we are all a mess, and it's not okay. Yet, with great joy, Jesus enters the mess to deal with what we cannot. Only He can clean our mess.

Enjoying the mess means intentionally engaging with others despite the dust cloud of dirt, problems, and messy lives. It means moving beyond our comfort level for the sake of the Gospel and for the sake of eternity.

Be like Pigpen; enjoy the mess!

Rev. Bill Allan
AGC President