I love snow—sorry, not sorry! Tiny, sparkly flurries that meander, slowly descending. Big, fat clumps that plash on windows, blanket our lawns, and flock tree branches. Fresh and pure and white; the landscape seems brighter and cleaner—even the air seems purer. And we’ve probably all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. It’s a reminder of the individuality we see in ourselves and those around us. You and I have a lot in common, but there are also so many differences. It’s easy for me to imagine that there is no one else precisely like me in this whole world, with my exact combination of features and talents and personality. Difference and individuality bring a snow-like freshness. A new baby or a new friend comes along, and everything brightens up a bit, right?
Yet before long, the fresh blanket of snow has been marred: The dog chases a squirrel, leaving paw prints and skid marks everywhere… You trudge a shortcut that perforates the fresh white sheet of lawn… Soon snowplows and shovels begin their incessant scrape, mingling the underlying crud into the slush, and too soon the clean is gone as the snow elevates, highlights, and displays dirt that previously blent into the dry pavement. Later, melting its slow death, it soaks shoes and the feet within, and becomes an ideal vehicle for depositing mud and salt on one’s car. Ugh! Even I have to admit that snow is not all “pro”!
And we, too, for all our intriguing uniqueness, have some things in common that eventually turn up to make us a slushy, grimy, mess like yesterday’s snow. Sin is everywhere; it’s in us and around us. And, like the dirt collected along the curb, we often fail to notice it until something digs it up and tosses it in our face, and then… You lose your temper…again. You tell an expedient, not-quite-white lie. You gaze with longing “over the fence”, certain that you’d be so much better off, maybe even be a better person yourself, if only you had what they have. Yep, sin is everywhere—in the people you live with, in your co-workers and your family, and even in you and me. But wait, there’s good news coming…
An old song promised, “To Know You is to Love You”; and don’t we all long deeply to have that kind of love? For someone to know us—really know us—and love us still? But often we are convinced that couldn’t be. “If you really knew me…” we think or say. We hold back and cover up, doing our best to conceal those ugly bits as if with pristine snow. But the good news is that Jesus Christ, the one who knows you, fully and completely, also loves you, fully…completely. He has numbered the hairs of your head. He saw you when you were being formed in your mother’s womb. He knows you, in all your uniqueness. Even before a word is on your tongue, He knows it’s coming. We can’t really hide with Jesus. The good news is that you don’t have to: He already knows the real you—the good, the bad, and the ugly—yet still He loves you through and through. Jesus died for us, paying the penalty for our sin that alienated us from God. The Bible tells us that He saw us for what we were—His enemies. Even then, He stepped up in the greatest demonstration of love by giving His life for us. For all who will accept His death as the payment for our sins, He gives us His perfect righteousness in exchange. Talk about an offer you can’t refuse! While we will continue to deal with sin in this life—in ourselves and in the world around us—we can accept that wonderful gift given in love and become, in the eyes of God and in eternity, as pure and clean as the only sinless man, Jesus Christ. Only as we accept His gift can we become…whiter than snow.
May God bless you with a fresh appreciation of Jesus’ love for you, now and in the coming year.