It just keeps coming and coming. Yeah there’s sledding and snowmen and beauty–but I can’t push my mind past the shoveling. Unrelenting storms have me dreaming of going south. Still, I must agree with my wife who loves the stuff; there’s nothing quite as exquisite as a fresh blanket of snow. The white almost hurts your eyes.
Our sins break our hearts. Whether our opposition to them is weak, growing, or zealous, we find ourselves somewhere on a continuum that may have begun with indifference, but now at times borders on despair–especially if a particular one has deeply dug hooks in us that we cannot seem to shake. What must God be thinking?
Judah was a mess. Pointing up the road to the ruins of the northern kingdom–now absorbed by Assyria, Isaiah warned, “You’re next unless you repent.” The people in Jerusalem had forsaken God like their cousins and rolled out the red carpet for evil. To the reader, it sounds like Judah will be the next nation of kindling wood for God’s wrath. Surprise. This gracious Father invited them to a peace conference and made them this heady offer: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; (Isaiah 1:18).
The Lord begged His people to repent: wash yourselves; make yourselves clean (1:16). The problem is that after we repent, sooner or later we fall again. Repentance does not stop sin; it does not make us right in God’s sight. Only Jesus can make us right by turning our sins white as snow. Not the day-after-tomorrow’s whiteness which turns ugly as it melts, that eventually exposes the bland untidiness of winter grass, that is browned by car dirt and chalked by chemicals, but remains as pristine white–whether 10 or 100 years from now, as it was when it fell and consumed our every sin. Snow just covers dirt; Jesus consumed all our sins on His cross.
I guess Betty’s right: isn’t the snow beautiful?
Gospel-Centered Life 