During half term, I was treated to lunch at the Blitz tea rooms in Ipswich. I’d never been there before. It was amazing. It has a small frontage but covers three floors and is set out like pre 1940s sitting rooms – with genuine furniture, crockery, photos and posters. And beautifully embroidered tablecloths! Our waiter explained that the particular tablecloth that dressed our table had been embroidered by a lady survivor of the holocaust, who it was believed had later gone on to marry the soldier who had freed her. What a love story!
The story made the cloth even more precious. However during the course of lunch, Mum inadvertently dripped some tea (proper tea pot, proper leaf tea, proper strainer) onto the cloth. The precious cloth was marked. The whiter the cloth and the brighter the embroidered flowers, the more the noticeable the stain seemed. At first, she moved her cup over it to hide it. Of course, that didn’t really help – we still knew it was there. Then my sister said, ”Don’t worry Mum, I’m sure this happens all the time. They’ll have some strong stuff to get rid of the stains.”
We all have stains of sin in our lives. Maybe the more glowing our lives may be in other respects, the more the stains stand out. We may try to cover them up or forget about them, but we know they are there. Don’t worry. God has seen it all before. There isn’t one stain that will beat Him – He has strong stuff that can wash away any stubborn mark – that’s the blood of Christ.
In the words of an old hymn by E.A.Hoffman:
‘When the Bridegroom cometh, will your robes be white –
Pure and white in the blood of the Lamb!
Will your soul be ready for the mansions bright,
And be washed in the blood of the Lamb?’