Christ’s sacrifice washes us, and we need that cleansing more deeply than we realize.
Hospitals know cleanliness saves lives. Hand hygiene has often been called the single most important factor in preventing infections acquired in health-care settings.
Yet studies have shown that doctors and nurses do not always wash as consistently as they should, even with warning signs posted in bathrooms, wards, and intensive care units.
So, a few years ago, an Israeli engineer named Efrat Raichman helped develop a system called Hyginex. It used soap dispensers and wristbands to remind medical workers to wash their hands before treating patients. If a doctor or nurse approached a patient without washing, the wristband lit up, then vibrated. The system could also tell whether enough soap had been used and whether hands had been rubbed long enough.
Raichman developed the system after someone close to her died from a hospital infection following what should have been a minor medical issue.
Being clean is critical not only in health care but in soul care. Is your soul clean?
In Revelation 7, the Apostle John is given a glimpse of persecuted Christians in heaven. He sees that though they will die for their faith on earth, they live in victory around God’s throne in heaven. And in verse 14, one of the heavenly elders tells John about these victorious Christians: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Symbolically, the elder was telling John that these were people who on earth had placed their faith in Christ’s sacrificial death and so every stain on their souls (poetically referred to as their robes) had been scrubbed clean.
But it’s not just persecuted Christians in the future days of trouble who need to be scrubbed clean. We all do. And in Revelation 22 we find out that the cleaning power of the cross is available to all of us. John wraps up his book with a series of invitations to the readers, and in verse 14, he returns to this idea of the cleansing power of the cross. He invites all of us: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.”
Notice how we gain access to the “tree of life” and the “gates into the city.” We are told that if we want eternal life and entrance into heaven, we have to let Jesus clean us.
This week at Hillcrest, we’ll continue our series called Cross-Purposes. The Bible uses four images to help us understand the purpose of the cross: the altar, the market, the courtroom, and the laundry. In our first three sermons, we went to the altar, the market, and the courtroom. (Watch them here.) In this week’s sermon, we’ll go to the laundry. Join us at 10am on campus or online!
Tom
Hey, Hillcrest Family! We started the "Next Step" campaign a year ago to call attention to our quarterly budget needs. The church has been so faithful to rise to that challenge! As the 2026 Second Quarter winds down, be in prayer that we finish this quarter strong! And if you can increase your normal church contributions to help us meet this month’s need, it will be put to good use!
To review the sermon that kicked off the Next Step campaign, click here.
Each week in this space, I provide links to articles and podcast episodes that I recommend you check out for yourself. I try to alert you to articles that might be behind a paywall with “($),” but I sometimes miss it.
Celebrate the Fourth of July with your neighbors! Here’s how.
In light of all the chatter about the SBC and women in ministry, Dani Treweek shows how egalitarians render complementarian women “invisible and expendable in pursuit of their own agenda.”
California has put aside more than half a billion dollars of public utility money that can be spent only by those who have sex with their own sex. (HT: The Free Press)
A Case Against Christian Doomerism. In case the last two Tapestry Threads concerned you, Griffin Gooch points out that the world is nowhere near as uniquely bad as you think it is.
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