Remember to Wash

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Isaiah 1:18

“Remember to wash your hands!”  That’s what my mom would tell me every evening before we ate dinner.  Every evening I would answer her, “But Mom, my hands aren’t dirty.” “Yes they are!”  “No, look, they’re not dirty.”  “If I say they’re dirty then they’re dirty. I can see dirty that you can’t.  Go wash your hands.”  “But mom, my hands aren’t dirty.  Look at dad’s hands. Now those are dirty.”  “Go!”  “But mom…”  “Don’t ‘but’ me mister. Just go wash your hands.”  So I would go.  I would pour a little water over them, dry them off and come to the table.  She would look at me, smile and say, “You still need to wash your hands.”  “I did.”  “Pouring a little water over them is not ‘washing your hands.’  Get back in there.  This time use some soap and REALLY WASH YOUR HANDS.”  There was no fooling my mom.  She knew the difference between pretending to wash my hands and really washing them.

Our Lord knows that difference too.  In the first chapter of Isaiah, the Lord tells His people to wash up… that their hands were stained with sin.  When the people pointed to all the “religious things” they had done as proof that they had washed, this was the Lord’s answer,  “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.  When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”  God was not fooled.  He knows the difference between pretending to wash and real washing. 

What’s the difference?  Soap!  Absent the soap of repentance and faith, all of our “religious activities” are just pretending.   If all that you and I are doing here on Sundays is just going through the religious motions… if we think we can do as we please because God will forgive us anyway… if we convince ourselves that if we simply say the right words about sin and a change of heart, without our hearts actually changing – we are fooling ourselves.  But we aren’t fooling God. 

God desires a real washing in your life and mine.  Our sin is more than just a matter getting a little dirt on our hands…  Our “sins are like scarlet… they are red like crimson.”  Our sin leaves a stain so deep, that simply going through the motions of religion will not remove it from our hearts.  The stain is so deep that there is nothing we can do to cleanse ourselves. 

We can’t.  But He can!  He has.  That’s why God gave His own Son Jesus to be our savior.  God so desires to wash away sin that He gave Jesus to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus had to take the stain of our sin on Himself.  “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by Himself being cursed for us…”  He bore our sins and carried our sorrows.  He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  Then on the third day He was raised to life… death’s power broken, sins price paid, everything changed. 

Now He invites us to Himself.  He says to you and to me, poor blood stained sinners, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.   That’s what He did at baptism.  Jesus washed our robes and made them white in His blood…  There is a modern day parable that really illustrates what Jesus has done.  It is called “the Ragman.”  This big strong man is walking through the city offering new rags for old.  He finds one mother crying tears of grief into her hanky, a little girl whose head is bandaged and bleeding, a man who can’t work because he lost his arm, a drunk man sleeping on the street under an old worn out coat.  Each time the Ragman exchanges one of his new rags for their old ones. With each old rag He receives the affliction and the person He meets is made whole. The mother cries no more, the little girls head is healed, the man has two arms and the drunk man is sober and strong.  But the ragman leaves crying, head bleeding, one armed and drunk.  He climbs to the top of a hill outside the city. There all these ailments take His life.  But only for a while.  For on Sunday morning, low and behold He is alive again.  All those old rags are folded, and neat, washed and made new again.  The Ragman of course is Jesus, the Christ.  The rags are our old sin stained rags, now washed clean.  

In Jesus, your faith is so much more than simply going through the motions.  In Jesus the Father offers to really wash you.  He promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  That’s the daily pattern of a faith that is real.  Every time you come to him, He takes your old rags – your sins of thought word and deed, of evil done and good left undone.  He takes the old rags and gives you His new ones.  No matter how deep the stain, He washes your clean.  He keeps this promise… though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  Amen!