Balmy breezes tickle the green lawns across my Florida neighborhood. Doughy cumulus clouds yawn and stretch until their shapes break. Puffs drift west across the iris-blue sky to visit their reflections in the bay. We could drive to meet them at the shoreline and fashion sugary sand into boulders. Sandmen wear shell buttons and wave palm branches to welcome tourists to paradise.
I needn’t ask my sons about such an outing. I know the beach offers little to appease their wintry longings. While ice threatens to sling our northern kin into misery, my children complain about the unseasonable warmth outside. To hands which never fashioned snowballs and eyes unfamiliar with frosted landscapes, no holiday wish outshines the dream of a white Christmas.
Sunshine cannot melt carols. No barrier prohibits scripture or kindness from dwelling in the tropics. With purpose and meaning intact, eighty degree weather still seems strange. Whether in Florida or other unfrosted areas, we long for those winter wonderlands. The comfortable weather seems at odds with Christmas somehow, as if we are missing out on a vital part of the season.
What does snow have to do with Christmas? Perhaps the connection never rose to consciousness, but it remains a niggle at the heart. When winter stings our flesh with its icy grip, we swaddle our children and gather indoors at fires to share cocoa. One must be uncomfortable to appreciate comfort at its fullest. Those chilled by despair can experience hope as a precious blessing.
Despite its cold surface, however, snow cleanses and nourishes the land upon which it falls. While freezing the spread of pestilence, the blanket also incubates life. Glorious white reminds us of Christ’s impact upon a world deadened by its depravity. The dark and withered earth transforms as a fresh covering falls from heaven to cover its barrenness.
That might be why I wish for snow at Christmas. My dream heralds the descent of the Lord’s radiant covering over our world. He makes all things new.
“The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned…
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
— Isaiah 2:2,6