The first snowstorm of the winter hit yesterday evening. It dumped a foot of snow at our house.
Having grown up in Florida, this snow stuff is still fairly new to me. In Florida, a snowstorm is seeing more than ten flakes in the air at the same time. My only childhood memory of snow was scrapping enough of the white stuff off my dad’s truck to make a snowball. That’s a big deal for a Florida boy. My boys have a lot more snow to play in today.
It really is a beautiful sight. As I look out my window, a blanket of white covers everything.
From my Achilles injury recliner in the backroom, I can see toward the front of my house and the back of my house. Toward the front of my house is the road. A few people are out shoveling, bundled up in coats and hats. Cars and snow plows pass by every minute or so. In this direction, the snow is a hassle. It has to be shoveled up, piled up, and plowed away in order to allow for cars and vans to get on the road.
Toward the back of my house, the snow sits undisturbed…except for a few deep footprints made from my boys playing last night. Piles of white snow rest on the tree branches, swingset, fence, and ground. It ‘s like one of those serene Hallmark postcards.
Of course I know what’s underneath that snow in our backyard. Nothing but nasty brown mud.
Over time, my boys have worn a path down the middle of our backyard. Football is their sport of choice and the playing field runs between a set of trees in our yard. I used to try to grow grass back there but I have recently given up. Grass just doesn’t grow well with four boys running and sliding on it all the time. So for the most part our backyard is dusty dirt (in dry times) or goopy, shoe stickin’ mud (in wet times). We do have a few hardy weeds that seem to grow well despite the conditions. I have always wondered why someone hasn’t figured out a way to cross-breed the hardiness and fast spreading nature of a weed with the aesthetic beauty of a turf grass. Sounds like a money-maker to me.
Anyway, I am glad it is our backyard that looks so bad. I would be somewhat embarrassed if our muddy, weedy lawn was exposed daily for the frequent passersby on the road. As it is, we work hard keeping our little patch of a front yard looking nice and green and let our backyard fend for itself.
Sort of says a lot about human nature too. We all have front yards—our public face. We work hard making this look as nice as possible to the frequent passersby in our lives. We also all have back yards—our private lives. The parts of our lives that get worn down, tired, muddy, filled with distractions and weeds.
And snow is like grace. It covers over the mud. It changes the dinginess of dirt to the pure whiteness of snow.
Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow… (Isaiah 1:18a)
God’s grace covers over our sin. Maybe “covers over” is not the best term since it implies a cosmetic over a blemish or a band-aid over a serious wound. But then again maybe it is a good term. After all the Bible says, Love will cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8b). Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins (Proverbs 10:12).
Love covers sin. Grace places a covering between the dirt of our lives and the pure holiness of God. That covering is the cleansing blood and clean righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The Christmas baby is God’s Christmas snow of grace. God’s white out.
But ironically the same snow that saves, that covers, that whitens everything dingy and dirty is a hassle to many. Grace is an irritant to the self-righteous. It must be shoveled away, cleared out. “Let’s get to the hardness of the sidewalk and get rid of this powdery white stuff.” And grace is an annoyance to the busy. “All of this love, relational stuff is great but I have got things to do and places to go. ”
But for those who have time to pause and reflect, for those who are intimately acquainted with the mud and dirt in their hearts, for those who have the eyes of faith, grace is a beautiful thing.