Sport is a god for some people. I must sadly admit that there are too many things that distract me from my devotion to Christ, but sport is not one of them. Today, in fact, our Nordic ski outing was an act of worship.
Madeleine and I aim for 150 minutes of moderate to vigourous exercise every week. This week we've exceeded that goal because we've been out in the snow. The call of the forest was irresistable yesterday, so we headed out in the morning to enjoy an hour on our favourite Trail 10, adjacent to the Ottawa River. The hour stretched to nearly two, as Madeleine had to stop frequently to take pictures of the wonderland around us.
Snow makes only a few cameo appearances in the Bible. There is an obvious reason for this: the events of the Bible took place in the Middle East, which was not exactly the snow belt of the ancient world. It still isn't. There was snow in Jerusalem a week or so ago, and people were so excited it was as if the city were hosting the winter Olympics.
In Exodus 4:6 and Numbers 12:20, God demonstrated His power to Moses and Miriam by making their hands leprous--"like snow." The whitening of the skin was an undeniable symptom of this dreaded and deadly disease, which Scripture seems to use as an illustration of sin. God judged Elisha's servant Gehazi in 2 Kings 5:27 by causing Naaman's leprosy "to cling to [him] and [his] descendants forever. So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow."
One of David's valiant men was Benaiah of Kabzeel. 1 Chronicles 11:22 tells us that this "doer of great deeds" killed a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. (Details like this serve to support the veracity and historicity of the Scriptures.)
Surprisingly, Job mentions snow more than any other book in the Bible--five times, to be exact. In the last text, Job 38:22, God asks Job if he has ever entered "the storehouses of the snow." This is a beautiful poetic reference to the fact that God is in control of the climate; not a single flake falls to the earth without His say-so.
Proverbs speaks of the refreshment snow would be in the heat of the summer harvest, and of how such a phenomenon is as unlikely as honour is unfitting for a fool.
There are also references to snow in the Psalms, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Daniel, Matthew, and Revelation. But perhaps the best known are in Isaiah. In Isaiah 1:18, God says through the prophet, "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." As we skied today, everything was covered with snow. As beautiful as that is, it is not what Isaiah is saying. The work of Christ is not just a blanket that hides the evil in us. It is that which actually transforms sinfulness to righteousness. "For our sake he made him to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Later in his book, God speaks through Isaiah of the faithfulness of His Word to do what He pleases: "For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it spring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:10,11).
Yesterday as we skied through the sugar-coated confectionery of Trail 10, we thanked God for the faithfulness of His Word and the completeness of His cleansing. Just as the bleakness of the windswept and frozen Ottawa River reminded us of the promise of spring, so the bleakness of pandemic life in a profoundly broken world give us reason for joy as we anticipate the return of Christ to snatch His Bride away to glory. The many descriptions of Kingdom life in a restored world where Jesus rules, peace reigns, and righteousness pervades are cause for hope and rejoicing.
It's amazing what an hour in the snow with the boards and sticks can do for body, soul, and spirit.
