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¹Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ²Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge . . . . ⁷Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. (Psalm 51 NIV)

In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals of the time lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge they knew as “childbed fever”.

 At that time, a doctor’s daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he went directly to the hospital where he examined expectant mothers without ever stopping to wash his hands. Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to notice such examinations resulted in infection and death. So he made it his practice to wash his hands with a chlorine solution. And after eleven years and 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers—about one in fifty!

 Based on his experience and expertise, he spent the rest of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues. And this is what he said:

 “Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proven all that I have said. But while we talk, talk, talk, women are dying. I am not asking anything world shaking. I am asking that you only wash. For heaven’s sake, wash your hands!”

 Unfortunately, no one believed him. Doctors and midwives had delivered babies for thousands of years without washing their hands and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now! Tragically, at the age of 47 with his colleagues’ laughter ringing in his ears, Semmelweis died insane, and his washbasins were discarded.

 In Psalm 51, David pleaded with God saying, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” And God did indeed cleanse David through his God-given faith in the coming Messiah. David’s sins of adultery and murder along with his sinfulness from conception (Ps 51:5) were wiped from God’s memory as His saving forgiveness washed over him. But the payment required for David’s sin would actually come centuries after David had died and at a cost that he could not truly understand at the time.

A thousand years after David pleaded to God to clean him and eighteen hundred years before Semmelweis pleaded with his colleagues to wash their hands to prevent death, another man, the God/Man Jesus Christ, stood over Jerusalem and wept saying,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling.”

Where Semmelweis had found a way to temporarily delay the inevitability of death through good hygiene, the man standing over Jerusalem had the answer for preventing something far worse than physical death. He had the answer for preventing eternal death through nothing more than faith in Him! In this, Jesus was, like Semmelweis, not asking for something world shaking, but unlike anything that Semmelweis could envision, it was world changing! All that the people of Jerusalem needed was the faith of a little child (Mark 10:15), and God was wanting and willing to give it to them. But like Semmelweis’ colleagues, they refused to believe by their own most grievous fault, and so they continued in their centuries old pattern of unbelief.

 And because of this unbelief, the man, Jesus Christ, who had the ultimate answer for death, suffered His own death on a cross of crucifixion that everyone might have life through faith in Him. Like Semmelweis, Jesus died with the laughter of people ringing in His ears, but that did not stop Jesus from asking God to forgive them, for He came and died and defeated death to forgive all sin—including our own sins of unbelief! “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow,” David pleaded. As God answered David’s prayer, so He continues to answer the prayers of all His saints to this very day and to the very end of life when Jesus comes again!

 November is a month in the Church year that begins with All Saints’ Day—a day for remembering in vivid detail God’s preservation of His people who have passed through this vale of tears and now enjoy the blessedness of heaven. November is a month that gives us an opportunity for giving special thanks to God for all the material blessings that He showers on us throughout the year. November is also a month that ends the church year with Sunday Scripture readings that remind us of the end of all things.

 God grant all of us at Trinity a child-like faith that receives without question what Jesus wants to give us—His Word and Sacrament in public worship. God grant all of us at Trinity a true thankfulness for His providential care of our lives—especially in the face of sickness, misfortune, and the negative reversals that come with living in a sinful world. And God grant us eyes of faith that look past this life to the eternal treasures waiting for all those who die in Christ. For heaven’s sake, God grant that you wash yourself in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14), for in His blood, you too are whiter than snow right now!