Could This Be Why We Want a White Christmas?

I always imagine snow-globe flakes skating through the air on Christmas, even if they don’t exist. The sparkle of fresh white blanketing all the dirt, the broken, and the not-right is fitting for a day when one birth changed everything. We know that things that pain God’s heart still exist on Christmas, just as we know all that lies beneath the snow doesn’t disappear, but we are more cognizant of the brilliant glory, the hush of wonder, the hope brought by a babe.

Snow also stills time and I want to slow. In the quiet, God seems wonderously near and the things that distract less distinct. Snow turns down the noise so I can better hear Him. Above the pressures, the failures, the sorrows. Above my inner critic. Above the voices of comparison and perfectionism.

Yet you and I both know that Christmas is not always as idyllic as in our imaginations. Shiny and bright can surround us but not saturate our hearts. We often enter Christmas contrasting the wonder we felt as a child with the weight produced by adulting. We long for a white Christmas like we long to find again the innocent bliss of youth.

We wish for a magic erase as high and wide as the world—one that could wipe away the tears from every crying eye, one that would restore hope and justice to the fractures and fissures, one that would provide a slate clean as brand-new.

And maybe we long for this all to be true because something in us knows it was meant to be true and that it can be true.

Maybe we’re looking for snow to cover what Jesus already erased.

White as snow

Perhaps as a kid you naively thought every promise made to you was set in stone. But then a promise was broken that broke your heart. This pain, too, you wish could vanish beneath fresh-falling snow.

But no matter how high the number of broken promises racked up against you, there is One whose name is Most High who makes good on every single promise. And these words are promised to all who accept Him as King:

Yahweh promises you over and over:
 “Though your sins stain you like scarlet,
 I will whiten them like bright, new-fallen snow!
 Even though they are deep red like crimson,
 they will be made white like wool!”

Isaiah 1:18b TPT

God sees all the things in our lives we long to be restored, forgiven, forgotten, or brought into existence. He sees the things we are carrying that He patiently waits for us to give to Him, and the things we long to hold that have yet to come to fruition. He sees every mess up that messes with our peace and taints the world around us. He sees all the things we’ve said or done or thought that contrast with His pure holiness.

And He offers to cover them with His righteousness that is whiter and purer than snow in our natural world. His is a snow that cleanses not only the outside, but all the way through us—a robe that blankets us, warms us, redeems us, names us:

I will sing and greatly rejoice in Yahweh!
My whole being vibrates
with shouts of joy in my God!
For he has dressed me with salvation
and wrapped me in the robe of his righteousness!

Isaiah 61:10a TPT

Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children.

1 John 3:1a TPT

Perhaps beneath our desire for a white Christmas is our desire to be covered and known and named by the Maker of the snow.

Missional people point arrows to God

All around us are people God longs to name Beloved. People in our families. People we sit next to at church or school or work with during our 9-5s. People who live in the houses near us or frequent the parks we visit or the gym we work out at. People longing, like us, for a white Christmas.

And perhaps they too are really longing for all to be made right. All to become white. All to be made new.

So as you watch the nostalgic, white Christmas movies this week, let’s remember the opportunity we have to be missional. To share about the One who makes not just Christmas white but our hearts white too.

Here’s a prayer you can take with you as you seek to be missional this Christmas:

A prayer for a truly white Christmas

Jesus, You are the most perfect, brilliant white snow that robes us in righteousness. May we enter Christmas this year knowing that You have covered us and named us Beloved. Help us to live like arrows pointing those around us to You so we can bring hope to our families, neighborhoods, and communities. In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

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