Snow and Righteousness
Since moving to California more than twenty-five years ago, one of the most missed aspects of life in Kentucky is the pronounced and distinct change in seasons. There are times when these changes are only slight because of unusual weather years but this is not what I experienced when I was home in the first part of this year. The weather was unbelievably volatile. On one evening, it rained four inches creating floods throughout the state and then as the rain was ending, there were violent thunderstorms and tornados. I went to bed watching the flashes of lightning only to wake up to an extremely wintry morning with the fields and trees around my daughter’s house blanketed in a glistening white snowfall. This sequence of weather events was unusual to say the least as these events are distinct characteristics of spring, summer, and winter. If there were still colorful leaves on the trees, fall would have been present which means I could have experienced all the seasons in one day.
It is not the unusual weather patterns that most intrigued me. It was a gorgeous snowfall blanketing the ground. White has long been a symbol of purity and without taxing our brains too much we can compare how a thick blanket of snow covers the impurities of the earth. At the end of last summer, my daughter constructed a new barn on her small farm. Construction materials lie scattered about along with the messes made by her sheep, goats, and chickens. All of this is visible and is a reminder of the chaos that ensues when not constantly cleaning. The snowfall covered these imperfections leaving exquisite beauty as far as the eye could see.
This type of beauty with the complete covering of blemishes by a snowfall is emblematic of the righteousness of Christ spoken of in scripture as the white garments of the saints. As the snowfall is a divine act sent down from heaven above, so is the righteousness of Christ a divine act of grace that covers, purifies, and hides our imperfections from the God of heaven. Christ does this for us through faith as He clothes us in His perfection. None of us could place the first snowflake on the earth and neither can we attain to one meritorious act that would welcome us into the presence of God.
Per usual, the types in scripture will break down when we press them too far. In three days, the snow melted exposing all the blemishes beneath. The beauty now forgotten, reminds that we still need to clean up messes. This is not true for the one covered in the righteousness of Christ. It is true we still sin, but all the Father sees is this white robe of Christ. Unlike snow that cannot remove the impurities, Christ’s blood and righteousness can. God is satisfied throughout eternity based on the merits of Christ righteousness earned by His perfect life imputed to us by faith alone in Him.
I wrote this sitting by a warm fireplace, and it was another day of snow. It was cold outside, and I had no desire to go out and leave my tracks in the white pristine blanket. Soon I would be back in California. No offense to trash and potholes—I kept pictures of this Kentucky beauty. Likewise, the scriptures are a photo album of lovely imagery constantly refreshing us in a very often ugly world.
Pastor V. Mark Smith