Take a look at your hands. How well do you know them? I can recall how I earned every scar. I know every freckle. I can tell you how I obtained a spot of pencil lead in my left palm in the second grade. Barely visible now, it is still there.

I know how hard my hands have worked and I know how they have betrayed my staunchest values in spite of my protests. My hands have did things in their younger days of which they should be dreadfully ashamed. I know, too, that my hands do not have a mind of their own. They are but a metaphor of the sin that flowed from my heart (before Christ delivered me from sin).

In Matthew 15, some Pharisees confront Jesus because His disciples did not ceremoniously wash their hands before eating. You see, the Pharisees were not merely pious observers of the Law of Moses. They had, for generation after generation, implemented laws of tradition – hundreds of oral laws – that governed every aspect of life both public and private. It is said that the Pharisees built fences around the Law of Moses that must be jumped to even dare break the written law.

Those oral traditions were considered as binding as the written law. One such law was that Jews must ritually wash their hands before eating.

Makes sense, after all. Jesus, the Creator of all life surely knew about the microscopic life that can live on our hands and make us ill if ingested. Of course, He did.

The Pharisees, though, were not concerned with the health of of Jesus and the disciples. They were concerned with power. They were attempting to slap Jesus down by catching Him in a sin.

Jesus, however, reminded the self-righteous Pharisees that it is not that which we pick up with our hands that condemns us. It is not that which rests in our stomachs that makes us “unclean,” but what rests in our hearts. Our hands do not condemn us, our hearts do.

I sometimes which I could wash away sin in a basin of water, like Pontius Pilate tried to do. During the trial of Jesus, Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, found no reason to condemn the accused to death. He offered the mob an alternative, a rebel name Barabbas that he hoped would satisfy the agitated mob that cried for the death of Jesus. The mob, instead, asked for Barabbas to be freed and demanded Jesus be crucified. Pilate ordered Jesus flogged, hoping – perhaps – that beating Him within an inch of His life would quench the mob’s thirst for blood. It didn’t. Pilate conceded. He ceremoniously washed his hands of the conviction of Jesus, placed the blame on the mob, and turned over Jesus to be crucified.

The strongest soap and an over-abundance of water is unable to wash away the sins of our hands.

Only the pierced hands of Jesus can wash the stain of sins from our hands.

The Roman soldiers made Jesus lift and carry the patibulum, the thick horizontal part of the cross. The patibulum weighed over 75 pounds. It had a hole bored through it that allowed it to fit down over and secure it to the stipes (pronounced sty-peez). The beaten and exhausted Jesus would carry it as far as he could.

Moments later, they tied and then nailed the hands of Jesus to the patibulum. Two Roman soldiers lifted the cross bar with Jesus affixed to it, and sat the hollowed out part over the upright stipes. His feet were nailed to a small foot rest called the suppedaneum. There he would hang with His beaten back against a rough-hewn cross, His feet and hands pierced spikes. I weep when i think that His hands, bloodied and broken, are the same ones that freed me from the bondage to our sin.

Only the nail-pierced hands of our risen Savior can wash away the sins of our filthy hands and guilty hearts.

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Father, I will, I do repent,

Humbly accept my punishment;

Ah, do not Thou the sinner leave,

Who chastening at Thy hands receive:

Instructed by Thy rod, I mourn,

Till Thou in pardoning love return,

And take the cause of grief away.

And with my soul forever stay.

Give me thus Thy death to see, 

Till my soul is all like Thee, 

Meet to live the life above, 

Swallowed up in praise and love.

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I love the sentiment from this Catholic prayer of contrition. It indirectly points to the Good News: We don’t have to die rather than sin again. Jesus has died for us, paid the price, and won victory over death. Because of His sacrifice, God forgives us of our sin, all of it. Our only duties are to repent and believe in (put our trust in) Jesus Christ, God will forgive us of all sin and unrighteousness. And, He will give us the power to find victory over sin so that we do not have to live as a slave bound in darkness. We are free indeed.

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Now let’s pretend that not only your church building loses electricity but your pastor’s house, too. Would your pastor be able to prepare a sermon without Internet? Would he or she have any stories to tell or illustrations to relate without searching online? Could your pastor speak from the heart or would he or she be lost with no light to read from a manuscript?

I imagine a church full of people wandering around in the dark, not knowing when to start the service because the countdown is not projected on the viewscreen. I imagine a congregation That cannot worship because they don’t have music and lights to manipulate their emotions, and because they have never been alone with God.

I remember attending church before viewscreens, before endless choruses, before the Internet, before Bible apps on smart phones, and before dark, cavernous multi-purpose meeting halls with manipulative lights, mood-affecting music, and polished performers.

I remember when we had a pastor to whom we could speak when we had a need, but that was before senior pastors, teaching pastors, youth pastors, children’s pastors, senior pastors, and church CEOs. I remember when we had to learn the books of the Bible and their order. I remember when we committed Scripture to memory. I remember when we were guided by the Spirit instead manipulated by the worship service .

And, I remember when we measured the success of a church not by the number of attendees but by the number of people whose lives were changed.

Why is the Church in the West dying? Because churches are social clubs doing “good works” based on social justice and humanistic principles, reaching out to people based on psychological precepts, marketing themselves like the newest trendy nightclubs, and presenting the prettiest, most talented, and charismatic musicians leading the newest music on a high-dollar sound system.

The dying Church in the West preaches “I can do all things through He that strengthens me,” and “I know the plans I have for you.” The dying Church preaches living “life abundantly.” It preaches giving with a “joyful heart.” But it forgets repentance and deliverance from sin, transformed lives, and freedom from the Law.

I long to find a church where the pastor preaches true Victory in Jesus because he has experienced it himself, not because he finds it in a Bible app. I pray for a church where the congregation is full of humble sinners whose lives are redeemed and transformed by the blood of the Lamb, and who are willing to reach out and lift others from the muck and mire of sin. I long for a church whose musicians play and sing to God’s glory, and not their own. I long for a song leader who doesn’t care if he or she is a little pitchy, because he or she is led by the Spirit and not the latest trends.

I pray let THE CHURCH BE THE CHURCH.

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