Lots of the items we stuff into the Kenmore just need routine refreshing after a day's wear. A little detergent, a fabric softener sheet tossed into the dryer and, voilla! Just iike new. Some cases, though, require more effort: soaking, bleaching, stain sticking and scrubbing. The nastiest messes are the ones that are ground deepest into the fabric, and heaven help us once a stain escapes immediate attention and becomes "set."

       I saw a new laundry product advertised on TV just the other day. Said to be the most potent stain remover ever marketed to consumers, it is comprised of 2 liquids stored in separate chambers within 1 bottle. When the bottle is squeezed, the liquids pour simultaneously from both chambers, their streams mingling and provoking a powerful chemical reaction appar-ently too volatile to be contained within a single package. The combo promises to be the most effective stain fighting system ever designed.

       But we've already seen what power a mighty combo can pack on the cleansing front. Good Friday/Easter was un-veiled a long time ago, and we've come to understand that one doesn't work very well without the other. If Jesus were to have been killed and that, period, had been the end of the story, the result would have been sadness on the part of those who loved him. The end. And had Jesus been endowed with immortality by virtue of Godly declaration, the result would have been a hollow triumph. Instead, though, a sacrificial action was paired with an incomparable resurrection, and the results have defending us from the stains of living ever since.

       Sometimes we just need to be refreshed from the day's wear, and sometimes we need to be scrubbed and bleached because we've gotten into something awful. But the great news of Good Friday/Easter is that Jesus cleans us up with his dually-bundled combo of forgiveness and hope! Pow!