White as Snow

My missionary friends spend part of the year in Israel and this past winter, they sent me pictures of their family playing in the snow, making snowmen and having snow ball fights. 

Snow! In Israel! I never knew that it snowed in that region! And when I saw the photos of white covering the ground, I was able to imagine Jesus, a young boy, watching the gentle flakes drift from the sky. He saw the landscape of his home change. The dirty ground became sparkling white. Stains were covered.

And that boy grew to be a man, the man who was God, yet died in our place. He alone changed our fates, erased our sins, and covered our stains. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, 

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall like wool. ~Isaiah 1:18

Happy Palm Sunday to you! And as Good Friday and Easter Sunday approach, may the truth of Jesus's sacrifice become more tangible and more beautiful to you with each passing moment!

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

(words by Elvina Hall)