It seems fitting to me that the two poles of our planet are covered in snow since there is hardly any other weather condition so polarizing as that fluffy white stuff. People generally fall into one of two camps, they either love it or hate it, with very few in between. But just as surely as I grant this division, I’m equally confident that both camps find it lovely to look upon, provided, of course, that the winter-haters don’t have to go out into it. There’s something soothing about a snow-covered field, something calming about the seamless world of whiteness leftover from the storm the night before. Why is this? Because, like all created things, our Maker intends it to be so. Remember, the project of this blog is not to infuse the world around us with my private interpretations, but to discern the meaning that Scripture assures us is already there. So, what is snow saying? I have found that the best way to determine what anything in creation is saying is to first note its qualities and characteristics. Ponder the accumulated depth of these in the light of the Special Revelation of the Scripture and then measure the meaning of what you find. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed about snow.
The first thing that comes to mind about snow is that it’s white. Indeed, this is the most common reason it is mentioned in the pages of Scripture. While wool is often cited for its general color of white, snow is referenced for its degree of purity. “Come now, let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow.” (Isa. 1:18) “…wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psa. 51:7) “His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow…” (Mark 9:3) But is snow really white? Isolate a flake, hold it close up and you will find that it is translucent, clear as water. Its color, as with all things, comes from the light that shines upon it. White is the color of light. “His face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as light.” (Matt. 17:2) Even in the thin morning mantle of frost – snow’s first cousin – the whiteness can still be seen. A rainbow is the separated colors of the sunlight. It reveals each individual hue contained within the beam. But snow just bounces them all equally back into our eyes, a solid layer of light, from a blanket of brightness laying on the ground.
And what a blanket it is! We’ve been taught our whole life that no two snowflakes are alike. But not only is each one unique every six-sided flake is also a wonder of delicate intricacy, like the complex design of some Gothic church that took half a century to construct. We’ve been marveling at these beauties ever since Wilson A. Bentley snapped a photo of one of them with his bellows camera back in 1885. And yet our Creator lavishly tosses them out like parade confetti, seldom studied, and destined to be shoveled into forgotten piles until warming temperatures reduce them to puddles. Has any other quilt been woven from so fine a thread? And yet it is laid upon the scrubby brown grass of winter’s wilderness and draped on the gnarled limbs of trees, stripped of all the luscious leaves of Summer. One inch of washing rain is equivalent to about twelve inches of burying snow. And just like the water it’s made of, snow seeks the lowest places of death and decay and covers them with unrivaled beauty. So whereas rain may wash snow exponentially buries and blots out the barrenness below. How like our lovely Savior, so radiant in His humility. Snow reminds us that “…love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Pet. 4:8)
And lastly, snow silences. Have you ever stood out in the falling snow and noticed how quiet it is? It’s not just that there are fewer cars on the roads and less bustle in the town. That powder deepening at your feet, that seems so smooth from a distance, is actually a labyrinth of sound dampening channels, absorbing the clamor of the world around you. Pause a moment and you can hear the tiny crystals landing on your coat, like the sound of eyelashes fluttering on the side of a Styrofoam cup, soft and gentle. Peace. Quiet. Rest. Like the earth has been tucked snuggly beneath the muffling layers to sleep until the spring returns.
Why did our Creator make snow with all these qualities? Have I embellished the stuff or written things about it that are not true? If we accept the truth that the one and only God, who made the world and everything in it, and who also sent His Son into the cold death down here, to cover with His own beautiful righteousness the ugly lifelessness that sin had left behind, thereby silencing the vicious accusations of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, how can we not also see echoes of these same things in the loveliness of snow?
