ON THE VANGUARD

LAUNDRY DAY
“’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 as crimson, they shall be like wool.’”
Isaiah 1:18

Sunday’s for me are pretty standard. I normally awake around 6:30am and begin working on my devotional. By 8:30am my kids and I are out the door and on our way to church. We normally return home around 11am and the rest of the day is filled with chores interspersed within a few hours of both Nascar and football as I flip channels. Yesterday was no different, really, with the exception being I watched no sports but instead spent a great deal of the day out and about with the kids at the park and such. The chores, however, still had to be done and so late in the evening I found myself still working on my laundry. Having two children I probably do not find myself subject to the laundry monster as often as others, but it still never ceases to amaze me where these clothes both come from and go. I am convinced that my kids put un-used clothes in the wash simply because they do not want to hang the clothes up in the closet. And I still believe that the sock bandit is a real enemy because there is always at least one sock missing from the load come folding time.
It was when all the laundry was done yesterday evening that I found myself doing something odd. I found myself reading the laundry detergent box. Outside of the fact that I realized I may have been putting just a tad too much soap in my cycle, I also read the words ‘with bleach’. All this time I was buying my detergent based on price and scent, not knowing that it additionally came with bleach. But it made sense. I had noticed that since switching soaps about 6 months back my clothes had seemed to be a little more stain free. In fact, I may even suggest that overall they looked a little more whiter. So as is God’s way when opening my eyes to something, God took me to the Bible to make a point.
I was reminded of Isaiah 1:18, which reads, “’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 as crimson, they shall be like wool.’” It was here that God showed me the depth of sin. When reading this my eyes first saw the comparison of sin to scarlet. It was not completely clear to me until I looked at the word scarlet in the Hebrew. The word is SHANIY, which is accurately translated. However, it is deeper. The scarlet in this word is actually a dye that was used to color the cloth red and was the dried blood of a coccus ilicis worm. This comparison then makes more sense when you consider that a dye is not supposed to wash out. But still there is more. When the female of this scarlet shaded worm was ready to give birth, she would fix her body to the trunk of a tree permanently, with no intention of ever leaving again. It is there she would give birth and stay until her young left. She, still fixed, would stay on the trunk.
It is in this illustration that two pictures are seen. The first is the dye that was used to stain clothes red. The second was the fixation of the worm to the tree, which seems to be an example of how sin desires to stay fixed on to us. But within these truths about the color red is a greater truth…that of God’s cleansing. Greater than even a laundry soap with bleach added in it are the words said by God. “[Our sins] shall be as white as snow…[and] they shall be like wool.” It was Christ’s blood that paved a way of cleansing for us. Our job then is to reason together with Him. Our job is to see our sins under the same microscope and light that He does, admit we have sinned, and ask His forgiveness. It is in this moment, in this prayer, and with this broken and contrite heart that God hears us and brings His supernatural detergent and stain fighting action to remove the stain of our sin. Let today for us be laundry day; let today be the day that the stain of our sin is washed away as we reason with God.