June 21, 2026
Have any of you ever stepped in mud before? What did it feel like when you stepped in the mud? What happens when you try to wipe the mud off your shoe with your hand? Right. The mud is still sticky and slick and gritty, but now it’s all over your hand too. Now you have all kinds of problems! As you walk, you track muddy footprints across the house, and you spread mud onto whatever you touch—your clothes, the door handle, your brothers and sisters!
What a mess!
Our sin is a little like that sticky, messy mud. In our Second Reading today from Romans, Paul says that once we get into sin—like into mud—sin can control our whole bodies (Rom 6:12). We can’t wipe our sin off. No matter what we do, we can’t get rid of it. And wherever we go, we end up spreading our sin. You know how mud leaves mud marks across the house? Our sins leave marks on people too. We hurt other people’s feelings with some things we say. When we hit or kick our brothers and sisters, it hurts them—sometimes makes them cry—and we can see how our sin has hurt them! Our sin makes a terrible, painful mess!
Going back to the mud—how do you clean the mud off your clothes and bodies? There’s only one way. You wash it off with pure, clean water. Your clothes go in the washing machine, and you go in the bath! The water washes you free from all the mud. And not only are you clean, but once it’s washed off, are you going to leave muddy handprints on the things you touch? Are you going to leave muddy footprints across the floor? No! Because you’re clean, everything else stays clean too.
Jesus died and rose from the dead to forgive and take away your sin. He washes away your sin with His holy, precious blood and then with the clean water of Baptism that gives you what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus washes your sins away so that your whole body is cleansed.
Now you use your words and actions to help people. Washed from sin, you use your words to encourage others instead of hurting their feelings. Washed from sin, you use your hands and feet to help up your brothers and sisters who fell or to get them a cup of water, instead of hurting them. Jesus washes away our sins so that our words and actions may be clean as well.
Dear Jesus, thank You for washing all my sins away in my Baptism! Amen.