But Who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launder’s soap.

Where did all this come from?

I was at an open house this past week and I was wearing one of my “designer ties”, my penguin Christmas tie, as I leaned over the buffet table a lady commented, “You better be careful not to get anything on that tie.” That got me to thinking - just last Wednesday at our Advent dinner we served spaghetti, Marty commented, “I can never eat spaghetti without getting some on my shirt and look here’s the spot.”

Spots and stains, I’d like to talk with you about spots and stains. Getting them is easy and getting the out is an ongoing challenge. At our house and I’m sure at a number of yours you have a number of spot and stain removers, ones that come with the claim to remove just about anything. We have Spray’n Wash; Ruth uses a lot of that on my shirts. We have Oxiclean and Oxi-deep; we have Clorox this and that; we have the latest and the greatest of them all, we have the current, ultimate weapon against stains- ammonia, scented with lemons but ultimately ammonia. With a little ammonia, a brush, and some elbow grease Ruth seems to be able to clean up after my toughest messes, spots and stains. I’m always amazed at what she can get out. I’m sure each of you has your own tricks or special cleaners “to get even the toughest of earthly stains out.”

Our Old Testament lesson today is about getting stains out. The prophet Malachi writes that one is coming who will be like a muscled washer woman, an experienced launderer armed with a scrub board and a strong bar of lye soap, and this one will be able to remove the most impossible stains.

~So what are these spots and stains that this launderer must come and remove? ~

In Malachi’s day the people had begun to forget all that God had done for them, and they began to do some odd things. They had begun to bring offerings that reflected not grateful hearts but sin stained hearts. Offerings to God were to be lambs without defect, but they had begun bringing blemished and crippled animals- keeping the best for themselves. Whispering, “What difference would it make to the Lord? He has all He needs,” and this worship is becoming too burdensome. (1.14 & 13) These are some serious stains that need to be removed…. We’d like to say we’d never do that but how often do we tire, if even just a little bit, of Him or give to Him from our leftovers. Service to the Lord ought to be a privilege, how often do we slink back from it?

And what of the stains that come from grumbling… We’d never do that!? We’d never be like the children of Israel, rescued from slavery, oppression, death and given new life. They were grateful for a time, but in short order they were grumbling: why did you bring us to this place, we don’t like it here…the food is lousy, this task is too hard, the neighbors aren’t like us, and they grumbled. We’d never grumble if our prayers seemingly went unanswered or were not answered as we felt they should have been or as we felt we deserved? …What manner of stains do we cover ourselves with when we grumble against the Lord?

What kinds of stains and blemishes come with self-righteousness or unforgiveness? And maybe the subtlest of stains, but a stain none-the-less, is the one of indifference to the things of God.

What about these stuborn spots and tenacious stains, what are we to do with them? To the world they may mean nothing, not even raise much of an eyebrow, but to a holy and clean God they are a grievous offense, and they carry a foul odor.

Isaiah said of them, Woe is me, Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips. (6.5) Allow me to paraphrase: Woe to me, Woe to me I am man whose clothes are hopelessly stained and grossly spotted, and I live among people who are the same as me. What am I to do? Is there nothing to take out stains such as these? Is there no work that I can do that would remove them? Can I by a renewed sincerity scrub myself clean meriting God’s favor such that He would overlook my sins? No, there is no manmade stain remover or stain fighter, not even Ruth’s beloved ammonia that can remove the guilty stains of our sins, and not even our works, no matter how sincere will remove them for all of our works are like filthy rags before the Lord. Are we then left hopelessly stained? Are we to end up like Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth endlessly wringing and washing our hands mumbling, “Out, Out, damn spot!” or more politely, saying, “Oh, be gone you dark and tenacious spot!”

How He gets them out?

God in His mercy did not leave us to languish and perish, to wander about in soiled and foul beggar’s rags when He’d rather have us attired, fit for a heavenly feast. He sent His Son that the stain of our sins could and would be removed, lifted, washed away. Yet, He who was the King of Kings came in meek and lowly estate. He came for all practical purposes as a lowly, washer-person, a launderer who labors hour after hour on other people’s clothes often unnoticed and unappreciated.

Of this launderer of human sin there was little about him that would make us be drawn to Him- no physical feature that we would take notice of Him. Yet, He went about His Father’s business. By and through His teachings and parables He taught the crowds about the things of God. It was noted that He taught with power and authority and not like their teachers of the Law. His Words often annoyed, irritated, and even infuriated those who felt they had no sin- He was at times like a righteous mother armed with a bar of soap staring down a potty mouthed little boy.

By His Words, then as now, we learn that we are sinners incapable of getting the stain of our sins off our souls and sin stained souls are an offense to the One True God.

This launderer was heralded by His wild-eyed cousin, John, who spoke with authority much like the prophet Elijah. Jesus came for all humanity in a meek and mild manner, but He came to do the most amazing thing. He set about gathering up the sins of all mankind, much like a mother gathers the soiled and tossed about garments of her lazy children.

I think this is best illustrated at His baptism. People went into the water stained and spotted by all manner of sin and came out clean. Jesus on the other hand, was without sin. He entered the water clean and spot free. But there He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world. (Matt 13-17) Luther called this the happy switch: We who were wearing our soiled rags are given His clean linen, and He who wore the clean linen of sinlessness traded to wear the rags soiled and smelling of our foul sins. St. Paul writes it this way, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. (2 Cor 5.21)

These rags He wore to His humiliation. The spit from those who denied and mocked Him mixed with His blood as He was scourged was a presoaking to the washing of our rags. All of His blood was needed for such a heavy load of our sins. His suffering and withering in pain served as an overzealous washer woman’s scrub board to remove our sins. With His dying breath He declared, It is finished! (Jn 19.30)

By and through His death our sins were and are forgiven even today. Our sins of grumbling and denying, begrudging and withholding, our sins of self-righteousness and indifference - all of our sins- they are forgiven, washed away by the outpouring of His blood.

Now there is an odd thing- by His blood we are made clean; by His blood our stains are removed; by His blood the foulness of sins is replaced with the sweet aroma of forgiveness. It may seem impossible but it is true, a truth attested to by His rising again to life. By His resurrection from the dead He was declared to and for all the world to be the Son of God who has taken away the sin of world. In Him- in His life, death, and resurrection there is a cleansing that takes away, removes the filthiest stains of sin. St. John writes in Revelation, They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. (Rev7.14)

That power to remove sins is here even today: poured into the waters of baptism, proclaimed in the words of His absolution, and united to the wine and blood of communion and the launderer’s soap of His Word. These are there to remove the tenacious spots of sin. These are able to wash us clean no matter what we may have slopped around in. All of this able to make us clean so clean that as Malachi writes, we might bring offerings in righteousness… that we and they will be acceptable to the Lord.

What do we do now?

As many of you know I love Peanuts comic strips. I have one I want to share with you. In it Charlie Brown is talking with Pigpen who is at first unrecognizable- he is clean and his hair is combed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. Even though Pigpen doesn’t seemingly do anything dirt and disorder seem attracted to him. By the last frame he is again covered in dirt and is disheveled. So it is with us and sin. Despite our best efforts we will in short order find ourselves covered with and stained by sin, but do not despair. God supplies us with an abundance of forgiveness. We need only confess our sins and in seeking to turn from them we find ourselves cleanup and ready to try again and Again AND AGAIN.

All around are people who need to hear that despite our best efforts we can never clean ourselves up before God. They need to hear of the one who can clean us up and does so freely and willingly. They like us need to hear of this launderer, they need to hear about Jesus.