1 John 1:7 (ESV) …the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Years ago, when he was  the associate Lutheran Hour Speaker, Rev. Wallace Schulz wrote and article titled “No ‘Delete’ Key is as Powerful as the Blood of Jesus.” In that article, he reminded us that we will all stand before the judgment sat of Christ, and that He will have a record of everything we have done. That can be a frightening prospect.

In our world today, information about us is being collected constantly. I asked an AI app on my phone about myself and it was amazing how many details of my life were on the screen in just a matter of moments. Alexa and Google and Siri are always listening to us and collecting details about our likes and dislikes. That means that potentially, everything you say or do is being stored somewhere. Even after you remove something from your computer by deleting it, it is still be stored in a database elsewhere.

It is becoming impossible to escape your past. Even though you try to delete things and hide them, you can’t really make them go away.

That is the situation in which we find ourselves every day. We make mistakes that we cannot undo. We try to hide things, but we can’t make them go away. The harsh word spoken to a family member when you wake up in a foul mood. The cheating on a test because “no one will ever know” but then the guilt consumes you. That lie you told at work to cover up for a blunder you made. The silence about a misdeed when you should have spoken up. We all have these things that we do every day, along with plenty of other sins. Even if we hide them from everyone in the world, they are not hidden from God. You cannot delete them by your own efforts, no matter how valiant they may be.

Thank God you don’t have to. We have something more powerful than any delete key: the blood of Jesus, which cleanses us from all unrighteousness. The sin-cleansing blood of the Lamb of God enables us to live each day in the confidence that God forgives us. We can stand before Him now and at the last day with the certainty that we have been redeemed.

Of course, if it were just the death of Jesus that we had in our past, we would have nothing special. Every religion can point to a dead leader in their history. What makes all the difference for us is that ongoing Easter proclamation “He is Risen.” Our faith and hope are in the one who has the power over death, the one who not only raised Jesus but promises that we will also rise.

The one who made His presence known to those two disciples on the Emmaus Road continues to show Himself to us today. He wants us to realize that His blood has provided the cleansing we need, and His resurrection is the guarantee of forgiveness and life.