According to weather reports, which are never wrong, Batesville is due for some snowfall starting as early as today. Lord willing, everyone will get where they’re going and be safely nestled in when (if) it starts. There’s nothing quite like a snowfall. Whenever it happens, I always think of two things. First is the Carpenter’s song, The First Snowfall, and second is what Isaiah wrote in the opening of his massive work:

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
(Isaiah 1:18)

In this text, the prophet, speaking on behalf of God, calls for his people to see the error of their ways. To act so unjustly in the face of a vengeful God is madness: come now, the Lord invites, and let us “reason” (to come to a proper conclusion) together.  Isaiah knows that Judah is a dead man nation walking. Denying it won’t make things better. They first must recognize their situation if they are to do anything to remedy it. To that, the Lord speaks through His prophet and tells the people “Your sins are as red as scarlet, but with My help they can be white as snow again. They are red like a crimson worm (the word “crimson” refers to a red worm common in the region) but they don’t have to be: They can be a white as a sheep’s wool.”  They can be white as snow.

Your sins may have made you dirty, muddy, wormy, and red, but through God you can be pure as the driven snow. That’s a wonderful thought.

Here’s a bonus thought:

Snow is formed when ice particles coalesce around a speck of dirt in the atmosphere. The speck is so minuscule compared to what forms around it, you never see it. You can eat all the snow ice-cream you want and you’ll never taste it, even though at the heart of every snowflake is a speck of dirt. You and I have sinned. We’ve done wrong. We’ve made our souls dirty and foul. Through Jesus, we can be washed and around our imperfect selves a snowflake of godliness can form.

Go outside and look out your window. Right now, it’s probably the same old-same old, covered in the dirt of the earth. Go back and look after the snow has fallen: See a blanket of pure white that has covered it all. That’s the majesty of snowfall. That’s the beauty of redemption.

~ Matthew