The Sunday Sermonette – History’s Filth and Ours.
Dachau. That one word conjures hellish visions of walking, starving skeletons, tethered to the gut-wrenching stench of decaying bodies and human excrement. Private John Lee, one of the American infantrymen who helped liberate the camp, later recalled, “We entered and the smell hit us first—it was like nothing I had known. Then we saw the bodies, and survivors so frail they seemed like shadows.” The sight and smell induced vomiting, crying, disbelief, and rage in the American Infantry Divisions that liberated the infamous Nazi Concentration Camp in April 1945.
Slogging through the decay and filth of that notorious camp was a young American, VOGUE magazine war correspondent Elizabeth Miller, whose gentle blues masked her toughness. After a day documenting the horrors of Dachau, she rode ten miles back into the ruined city of Munich, where, by chance, she ended up in Hitler’s private apartment, abandoned in the chaos of Germany’s collapse. Can you imagine what it was like being in that apartment?
Hoping to cleanse Dachau from her tired body, she undressed and left her boots on the bathmat, soiling it with dirt and ashes from one of history’s most horrific death camps. Then she slipped into the warm, swirling waters of Hitler’s bathtub, too exhausted and overwhelmed to remove his photograph from the room.
Her photograph, taken by fellow war correspondent David Scherman, became one of the most evocative images of the war’s end. It was not glamorous, but it captured the collision of atrocity, liberation, and personal defiance in a single frame. The filth on her boots, visible on Hitler’s pristine bathmat, came from the crematoria and the bodies. The contrast is the entire point. Turning now to Scripture, the contrast between filth and cleanliness is spoken of in the Good Book, as well.
In the Old Testament, Jeremiah—called the “weeping prophet” because of his profound grief for the sins of his fellow Jews and Father God’s impending judgment on them—wrote: “Although you wash yourself with lye and use much soap. The stain of your iniquity is before me, declares the Lord God.” The lye and soap symbolize our efforts to appear clean and righteous before Father God. Despite our attempts, only God’s grace and Jesus’ death and resurrection can truly cleanse us from our sinful stains. We cannot cleanse ourselves without their divine intervention and our admission of our sins.
Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament prophet to warn us of our need to cleanse ourselves of filth. Isaiah’s words were as harsh as Jeremiah’s, challenging the religious order of the day. Through Isaiah, Father God delivered messages of judgment to His people, warning them about their rebellion, idolatry, and injustice, especially toward the poor. Isaiah declared, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. And all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
The phrase “like one who is unclean” suggests a state of impurity, both morally and spiritually. According to Jewish law, being “unclean” meant being unable to approach God or participate in worship. This highlights sin’s seriousness and how it taints our relationship with Father God. If even our best moments leave us unclean, what hope is there for the unclean?
When “all our righteous deeds” are compared to “filthy garments,” that should remind us that even our best efforts are stained by sin. For some, this might challenge the idea that our good works earn us favor with Father God. That is not the case. It should, though, emphasize that true righteousness is a gift from God alone.
As we age, I think you’d agree that we all fade, just like a withered autumn leaf. Our good looks fade, and so does our youthful strength. And our iniquities? Aren’t they like the wind, sweeping us farther away from our forgiving Father and loving Jesus? Isn’t that an accurate description of the state of mankind?
Elizabeth Miller washed her Dachau iniquities away in Hitler’s bathtub. But we have someone who can wash away our iniquities so we’ll be whiter than snow, not stained like Hitler’s bathmat. Remember this uplifting hymn? “Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole; I want Thee forever to live in my soul. Break down every idol, cast out every foe. Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow. Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
I think I need to take a “holy” bath. What about you?
Ponder this and go forth.