Snow. It’s
everywhere right now. It
snowed several inches Friday. While
I was preaching on Sunday I could see out the glass doors that it was a virtual
whiteout for awhile. Did
you watch the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles later that day? It was snowing so hard you could
barely even see the players. Then
it snowed a few more inches early Tuesday morning. Our side yard has about eight inches
of snow on it, which made for a fun football game with the kids yesterday
afternoon. It is supposed
to snow again on Saturday. Granted,
south-central Ohio isn’t quite Buffalo, New York, but this is a good amount of
snow seeing as winter hasn’t even officially begun yet. Looking out my
office window on this bitterly cold yet beautifully sunny day, everything is
covered with snow.
Andy Goldsworthy once said, “Snow
provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.” Well, when I was a little kid I lived in the
lowcountry of South Carolina. I can
remember two dustings of snow throughout my entire childhood. For kids who were much more accustomed to the
beach, those very light snows were absolutely magical. I also have a memory that I am not sure if it
actually happened or not. For some
reason I remember our family pulling off the road in the mountains of North
Carolina and playing in the snow. The
only reason we were ever in North Carolina was when we were on our way to or
from Oklahoma, but that was always in summer.
Maybe it didn’t happen, but it’s a good memory nonetheless.
When I moved to northern Oklahoma when
I was a freshman in high school I got my first experience with snows of several
inches. One weekend when we were snowed
into my grandparents tiny little shack of a house, I remember pulling Lost Horizon off the shelf and reading
it cover to cover, and being carried away to Shangri La. Another time we were snowed in I read Jurassic Park in its entirety in one
day. Later in high school I remember
games of snow football on the school lawn and lying down on an old car hood
chained to my friend’s dually pick up, being pulled on the snow covered
streets. That was stupid. Speaking of stupid, I also remember a snow
day on which several of us were in our friend James’s Ford LTD that we’d named
“Blue Thunder.” We were doing doughnuts
in the snow at the town rodeo arena. We
ended up running into a light pole.
James died five or six years ago of cancer. He was a wild one and I have a lot of
memories of times with James that should have killed us long before cancer took
him.
I remember that on January 5, 2001 it
snowed really hard in northern Oklahoma.
I remember that because I was in a little Toyota Corolla driving through
the snowstorm trying to make the 120 miles from Stillwater to Cherokee. I remember the date because our wedding
rehearsal was that night and we were afraid no one would make it. The next day it was freezing cold but sunny
when we walked out of the church after saying our vows and eating some cake to
be showered with birdseed as we climbed into that same Toyota Corolla with “Just
Married” shoe-polished onto the back window.
Another memory of snow that I hold close to my
heart comes from five years ago or so when I was hiking with friends at about
10,000 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It was early October and when we were about
four miles into our high altitude hike it started snowing harder than I’ve ever
seen. It was breathtaking. I felt so small and insignificant, but that
was a good thing for a change.
Eventually, though, we had to turn back without making it to the top of
the trail because the snow was up to our knees.
We turned around but I’ll never forget the grandeur of what I saw that
day.
Snow doesn't usually come to mind when we think about the Bible. So often we think of all the events in
the Bible happening in hot, dry, dusty climates. Everyone is wearing sandals and protecting
themselves from the heat. However, it
does snow in the Holy Land. It snows a
little bit pretty much every winter in Jerusalem, although it doesn’t usually
stick, probably kind of like Atlanta.
However, this past January, Jerusalem had its worst snowstorm in
twenty years. They got eight inches in
one day which is a good quality snowstorm even here in Ohio. I love this photo of a Jewish man
praying at the Temple Wall in the midst of the snow. In Galilee, where Jesus grew up and lived until he was about thirty, it snows even more often than it does in Jerusalem. So Jesus almost certainly got to experience snow as a young man. I've never imagined that before!
Snow is mentioned twenty-three times in the Bible, usually as an example of something being clean and white. The most famous example of this comes in Psalm 51:7, "Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow." Of course, over time racists being the word-skewers they are, used these kinds of verses to teach those of color that to be white is to be closer to God. That was a terrible lie and it totally misses the point. David was pouring his heart out to God and asking for forgiveness. Cleanness is a metaphor for being forgiven. Snow, when it first falls, is "clean" and "pure." It's just a metaphor; it doesn't have anything to do with anything else. Snow is used several other times in the Bible as a metaphor in this way, and what a beautiful metaphor it is. I have heard that when Bible translators were translating the Bible into certain African and Pacific Island languages, they had to find another word besides snow because nobody there had any idea what snow is. The metaphor for forgiveness is extraordinarily important, too important to be lost just because someone has never seen snow. I think they ended up substituting the word for clouds or sand or wool.
My favorite of all biblical mentions of snow comes in Isaiah 55:10-12 and following:
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the
eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
I
don't know if I really was trying to make any kind of point today. I just saw snow outside and decided to write about it. The snow, with all the accompanying cancellations of events, has allowed us to have an unexpected Sabbath time within our family. At first it seemed a hassle, but then it seemed like a blessing. I hope you are safe, and that you take just a moment today to look at the snow and to think about God, and think about the beauty of nature, and think about some positive memory you have that involves snow. Share that story with someone, and be at peace.
May you know you are loved and blessed today,
Everett
