"Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it whte as snow."

Hymn: “Jesus Paid It All” – Elvina M. Hall (1820-1889)
Tune: ALL TO CHRIST

A crimson stain… a scarlet letter. Sin’s identifying mark. We all have one. For some it is more evident than others.

I remember hearing a story told (I’d give credit if I could remember from whom I heard it.) of a group of ladies who complained to the pastor because a street person who reeked of alcohol, tobacco, and other rough-life odors  had begun to attend their Sunday services. Upon hearing their orders to do something about it, he said simply, “I’m just glad my sin doesn’t smell.”

Gratefully for those of us who believe, no matter how deeply-seated our sin is, how long it has controlled us… whether or not it is odorous… the stain has been covered, bleached, removed. Where once there was the redness of an open sore, there is now a white, healed smoothness.

With David in Psalm 51, we cry out: “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” And God’s response comes at the cross.

Robert Sterling’s arrangement of this hymn sung by the Truett-McConnell College Chorale