Robert Fulghum wrote in the Kansas City Times, "Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together."

There is a certain wisdom about childhood. There is also a certain innocence about childhood, isn't there? An innocence we would often like to return to. The innocence of a simpler life. The one time of year we probably think about that more than any other is during our preparation for Christmas. We sometimes dream of returning to the wonder and eagerness for all the holiday merriment, hearing the Christmas story, and of course, the surprises waiting under the tree. Wouldn't it be great to be a kid again for just one Christmas? Wouldn't it be great to return to that age of innocence?

A song writer named Kenny Loggins had a similar desire. In the beginning of his music career, he wrote a song about Winnie the Pooh called "Return to Pooh Corner." The song spoke about his realization that his childhood days were gone, and that he was trying to look for a way back to those simple, innocent days. He was trying to look for a way back to the "days of Winnie the Pooh," but found none. He sang: "Christopher Robin and I walked along, Under branches lit up by the moon, Posing our questions to Owl and Eeyore, As our days disappeared all too soon, But I've wandered much further today than I should, And I can't seem to find my way back to the wood."

Later in his song-writing career, Kenny Loggins, now a father, did a remake of that song in which he added another verse. "It's hard to explain how a few precious things, Seem to follow throughout all our lives, After all's said and done I was watching my son, Sleeping there with my bear by his side, So I tucked him in, I kissed him and as I was going, I swear that the old bear whispered "Boy welcome home." Mr. Loggins' long search to return to his childhood was over! As he sat there looking at his own child, he realized that having a son has taken him back to all the innocence and wonder of childhood! He finally found a way back! I would venture to say that those of you who are parents have found the same thing to be true - that you do, in a way, return to your childhood through your children. I am starting to realize that myself.

You could say that we lost that "innocence of childhood" when we became "grown-ups," or "adults." That could be true. But our real loss of innocence came long before that. Our tragic loss of innocence happened thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden. We not only lost our innocence, but we also lost the perfect knowledge of God we once had. Think of the perfect childhood innocence Adam and Eve lived in! They were perfectly happy, perfectly content, and perfectly comfortable. They always wanted to do the things God wanted them to do. They saw eye to eye with God on everything, and they knew God so well they knew his thoughts. Their wills were in perfect harmony. That was innocence! That was how life should be! That is what we all really long to return to!

Of course, you know what happened, don't you? Adam and Eve lost that innocence. They decided to do something that God did not want them to do, and as a result, the beautifully perfect harmony of will they shared with God disappeared with a poof! That is also where you and I lost our innocence and perfect knowledge of God - in Eden. That's the real reason that we long to return to innocence, but can't. Every one of us, including children whose simple lives sometimes appear to be innocent, have lost the perfect image of God we once had.

I shouldn't have to try too hard to convince you of that fact. "Innocent" is one word I would never use to describe my life. Innocent is not even a word that I could describe one day out of my life. What about you? Being innocent would mean that everything we do on a given day would be to the glory of God and helping our neighbors out, perfectly motivated by unselfish reasons. (Sometimes even when I do things that are good, I realize that I have selfish reasons for doing them. I want to look good.) Being innocent means that every word we speak is perfectly loving to others and something that God would love to hear as well. (Again, to have one day where that always happens seems to escape me.) Being innocent also means that every one of your thoughts matched perfectly with the way God thinks. This is the hardest one, isn't it? Our thought-world can be pretty ugly at times. Innocent? I don't think so.

Isaiah 1:18 tells us, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Bible commentators say that scarlet portrays sin, not only to denote its deadly character, but also to emphasize its indelible nature. They tell us that you can immerse a cloth in any other color and the stain can be removed. Once red dye has been thoroughly set in a piece of goods, however, no scientific method is known that can successfully eliminate it without damaging the fabric. Even if the material is rubbed and scrubbed until threadbare, the fibers that are left will still retain their crimson hue. (How many of you have some pink underclothes from mistakenly washing them with something red?) Sin is pictured as being indelible as far as human efforts to remove it are concerned. There is nothing we can do ourselves to change our evil nature and turn it into the white purity of holiness. God alone has the power to erase the terrible stain of our sins.

And that is exactly what God did! Kenny Loggins, and many of us as well, have discovered that we have lost the innocence of our childhood, but that there is one way it can be regained - through the coming of our own children. The Bible tells us about the tragic loss of our real innocence and knowledge of God in the Garden of Eden. But it also tells us that both of those things were regained - and that they were also regained with the coming of a child! God tells us that our innocence has been restored through a Child - his Son! That was God's plan for sending his Son Jesus into the world - to restore the innocence we had lost in Eden. To restore our relationship with God to one of friendship again, and to restore our relationship with the devil to one of hostility again. That is what innocence is.

In our text for today, Isaiah was pointing us toward the innocence Jesus would return to us by suffering the punishment we deserved on the cross and rising again from the dead. That is what would erase the blame! Isaiah said, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Well, even though we don't have any weather reports from the year 33 A.D., I can tell you for sure that it began snowing all over the world at the moment Jesus died. All of the ugliness of our sin-infested world was covered by a beautiful, perfect blanket of snow - the white snow of Jesus' perfection and holiness. And now instead of looking at our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, God looks at the pure perfection Jesus has given us!

Take a look at your own yards. You know how ugly they can be, covered with trash and brown weeds and dirt. That describes our sinful life. But look how beautiful they are when they are covered by a perfect blanket of white snow, untouched by human hands or feet. That is God's grace in your life! His love for you has covered up all the things you would rather not have Him see!

So our innocence has been restored. Now what? What do we do with that "perfect yard of snow"? If you are like me, you hate to spoil the beauty of that blanket of snow covering your yard with footprints and other trash on it. Spiritually speaking now, because of Christ, we live in perpetual grace. Our yard is always fresh and clean as the new fallen snow. The trash is out of sight. We don't want to spoil it. But sometimes our sinful nature says, "It won't matter…I'll be forgiven if I sin, so it's no big deal. I can trample across God's grace because He has more." But that isn't what the new person in us says through faith. Faith says that God's grace is too beautiful to run with muddy shoes across it! We want to remain in the innocence that Jesus has covered us with. Wouldn't keeping it perfect be a great way to say thank you to God?

We can say "Thank-you" to God for restoring us to innocence by living innocent lives. How do we do that? There are a couple kinds of innocence. I have seen Fred Rogers outtakes and it was really pretty funny when Mr. Rogers made a mistake: "Oh for goodness sakes!" Quite a contrast from the bleeped out outtakes you see from most shows and movies now days. That is one kind of innocence. Keeping away from sin and evil says "thank you" to God. There is also another expression of innocence Jesus showed: his inability to stay calm when Satan was having his way. The way He rebuked the Pharisees for leading people astray with false teaching. Or the time He made a whip and cleared all the merchants out of the temple! There was nothing meek about that. But there was a perfect innocence about it - an innocence that won't allow sin to continue. We need to show that kind of innocence too. How can we be calm, cool, and collected when the world around is going to hell? Innocence means standing up for Jesus and sharing the truth - out of love for the souls of others. Let's return to the innocence that God had in mind for us. Let's return to the innocence that Jesus restored in us through his work. With that innocence, let's say "thank you" to God.

Why? Because He sent a child into our world that was also His child. He sent a child into this world as the one and only way that our innocence can be restored. What Child Is This? One who Restores our Innocence! Every time we are assured our sins have been forgiven, we walk away like a person 1-minute-old! That is the beauty of forgiveness! We get to look at the world once again through the eyes of declared innocence. That's a lot better than all of the cynicism of a far too grown-up world which has grown away from its Father. We are God's innocent children again! Innocent children that will live in the eternal bliss of heaven with God forever. That is what this Child has done for you! Amen.

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