I received the photo above from Brent High several months ago.  It came with the caption "Why Women Don't Let Men Bathe Babies", but I'll save that message for another time (you wives can feel free to fill in with your own thoughts here).

But I want you to reflect for a few moments about the need for cleansing.  There is a need for dirty dishes to be cleansed.   And there is a need for babies to be cleansed, although preferably not at the same time and in the same place.  Some attempts at cleansing (especially those made by men) are not as successful.   My favorite way to pass room check in college was to lift the bed, throw everything under it, and set it back down.   My children will tell you,
though, that their mother knows how to clean the way it should be done.   More than once, after cleaning the kitchen, I've been told by one of my children, "That's not the way Mom does it!" The kitchen looks clean (at least, it does to me).  But it's not really clean.  I don't always want to admit it, but I know it.

We also have a need for spirtitual cleansing.  Because of sin, our lives are blemished.  We've managed to create quite a filthy mess.  And we sometimes think that if we just do enough good things, it will erase all the sinful things
we've done.  But our attempts to obtain that cleansing on our own have been about as successful as my attempts to clean the kitchen.  Our lives may look clean.  But they're not really clean.  We may not always want to admit it, but deep down, we know it.

Remember the Pharisees?  They were great at cleansing themselves -- on the outside.  But on the inside, they looked like the dirty dishes in the picture above.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish,
but inside they are full of extortion and
self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee,
first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish,
that the outside of them may be clean also."
(Matt. 23:25-26)

Our cleansing must begin on the inside, and it can only be found through the blood of Jesus Christ.  "What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus." Without that blood, all the soap in the world can't remove the
stain of even one sin.

Therein lies the power of baptism.  It is "not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God" (I Peter 3:21) as it brings us into contact with that saving blood (Rom. 6:3).

Feel like the baby above?  May you find cleansing through Him who shed His blood to make that cleansing possible!