“For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.”
Hebrews 10:10
See that?
All you who live in warmer climes and dream of snow – flakes falling like magical unicorn fluff from a starry heaven while carollers revel and handsome fellas from the W network fall in love with you – have never seen snow in March.
It’s dirty. It’s crystallized from so many freeze-thaw cycles. Its full of bits of random stuff – twigs. Grass. Pine cones and needles and mud. Chunks of random animal poo.
It’s definitely not pretty.
It’s hideous.
And that skiff of white on top?
Yeah. That’s Fourth Winter trying it’s best to assert its dominance over the rotting snow banks. It’s perpetuating the farce that snow stays beautiful all winter by trying valiantly to cover up all the grossness.
But there’s something rotten in the state (well, it’s actually a province, but you get the idea) of Saskatchewan.
Nothing can cover up the fact that the last of the snow is full of snow mould and decay and smelly icky mysteries which shall remain Unnamed.
Even a big dump of wet snow like the one they’ve forecast for today can’t quite disguise the rotten state those sad piles of sad snow are in. They too will suffer the same fate, and end up disturbingly dirty.
No. The best thing now is not to cover them up but to get rid of them.
For good.
Which is pretty much the message of Easter, yes?
Our sinful natures are rather like snowbanks. They seem innocent enough – when they are fresh. But with time, their true nature can’t help but show through.
Icky, dirty stuff underneath.
And we do it best to cover up the mess. We rationalize and justify ourselves and pretend our own righteousness is enough. We project our mistakes onto others. We blame and lie and add more white fluff on top but the piles keep growing and rotting and smelling to high heaven.
What we need is not another layer to hide the infinite layers, but Someone qualified to uncover them. Lay bare the secrets and get honest with the smell and get down to the business of removing them altogether.
See, anything we can do on our own just prolongs the agony. It perpetuates the false sense of security that ignoring our issues can build. It’s just a skiff, a temporary bandaid when we need invasive surgery.
We need the Son.
Spring sunshine will go to work on those ugly snow piles and slowly but surely, each molecule will melt, drip, wash away the deposits and expose the garbage. Then I can grab my rake and grab all the yucky residue and dump it to Crumpit.
And the same holds true for our spiritual garbage – except it is the sacrifice of Jesus that very first Easter that will remove the decay and rottenness in my life.
But I need to see it. I need to understand the consequences of ignoring it. I need to have enough faith to agree with God that it has to go.
And as I come to the cross, calling it the grunge that it is, the great cleanup begins.
I’m so glad I don’t have to live with that rottenness.
I can be forgiven and clean and free!
Celebrate being made holy with me?
Father, how amazing is the grace that would remove our dirty messes and exchange them for beauty and righteousness. Remind us of how truly dirty our sin looks in Your eyes, and how important it is to have it dealt with. Amen.
Growing in Grace 