Have you washed your hands? That was the question I got from my mom as I approached the dinner table every night. I always thought it was a needless tradition and just a waste of water. I wasn’t going to eat with my hands. I had silverware to use, but my mom kept insisting and asking the question, “Are your hands clean?”

Well, today I want to ask you the same question. Are your hands clean?

There’s a story that comes to us in the 19th century about Vienna General Hospital. This was the largest hospital and largest medical school of its kind in the whole entire world. However, at Vienna General Hospital, there was a grave problem. The death rate at General Hospital was five times higher than that of women who chose to have their babies at home.

Every time a woman would go to have birth, she faced an incredible challenge to make it out alive. Almost 1 in 3 mothers died in the process of giving birth at Vienna General Hospital. History called it The Childbed Fever. However, during those times, Vienna General just called it “bad luck.” Austrian doctors thought for sure that the problem lay with foreigners.

The foreigner doctors who were there were “much more rough” and “not as well refined” as those who were from the hometown. So, they fired all the foreign doctors. But the death rates never changed. But in 1846, that all began to change. That was the year that Doctor Semmelweis came on to staff at Vienna General Hospital. He had a theory.

For months, he had watched scores of doctors go directly from the autopsies of dead bodies in the morgue directly into the birthing place where these mothers were dying. And he noticed that not one of them would wash their hands. You see, medical science had not understood the importance of having clean and washed hands. But the crusade of Doctor Semmelweis fell on deaf ears.

In fact, one official hospital response was, “It is sheer impertinence to suggest that the finest doctors in the world should carry contagion upon their hands.” And with that, they fired Doctor Semmelweis. You see, sometimes identifying dirty hands can really be costly. But Semmelweis continued the cause. In a debate, he said, “I have shown you how the mothers are infected. I have also shown how it can be prevented. I have proven all that I’ve said. But while we talk, talk, talk, women are dying. I’m not asking for anything earthshaking. I’m just asking you to wash. For God’s sake, wash your hands.”

You see, unwashed hands are deadly tools. And not just in hospitals. But the same is true for us today in the church.

As leaders who have been called to God’s church to participate and to disciple others, our mission to preach that word is to identify unwashed hands in ourselves and in one another, but also to point to the soap so that we can find the cleanliness we need. We’ve been called by Scripture to admonish every man and teach every man with all wisdom, that we may present each other as washed and clean in Christ.

It’s always been that way for the church. In fact, for a year, David had dodged the scandal about Bathsheba and her late husband. Then up stepped the prophet Nathan, who, through a very creative story, told David, “You are that man.” The question was, “Are your hands clean?” And the answer came back, “No. Your hands are dirty.” Identifying the dirt and pointing to the eternal soap is what we are to do.

The tried-and-true forgiveness of God made possible through Jesus Christ is His best offer yet. It’s a grace that doesn’t dissolve. In fact, His grace and His mercy, His love shown to us, and the blood that He poured out washes even the deepest stain and can make us absolutely pure and white as snow. Jesus Christ cleans our hands.

In fact, it was after that recent experience that David had with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband that he wrote Psalm 51. And in Psalm 51 he said, “Generous in love, God give grace, huge in mercy, wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt. Soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I’ve been. My sins are staring me down. Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean. Scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.”

David’s prayer is the same prayer for us, for you and I today. In a culture like ours, it’s so easy to get our hands dirty. And yet, because of the cross of Jesus Christ, we have an opportunity to once again come to the table of life with clean hands.

Prayer
God, thank You very much for giving us Jesus Christ. We come before You with dirty hands. Our lives are full of things that we should be doing that You’ve asked from us that we refuse to do. God, forgive us. Cleanse us. Help us to come to the table so that we might have peace with You. That we would come to the table and that our hands would be clean. That our hearts would be clean. We ask this because of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and the promise that He made to us, that if we would confess our sins, that You will be faithful to forgive us for all of our sins for His sake. Thank You for teaching us how to have our hands clean. Thank you for your Word and for washing us today. Give us new life now and send us out into the rest of our day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

ITTT