Seems like just yesterday it was summer. The land around me was teeming with lush green grass and tall flourishing trees. The gently rolling, blue hills in the distance and the misty rays of sunshine forming arbitrary boundaries around the fields completed the perfect backdrop for this idyllic setting.

Now it’s Friday morning, December 13th, and I am seated comfortably on the couch in my warm and well-appointed home in Damascus, MD. The sound of German Weinachtsmusik fills the air.  In front of me is the mantel piece, tastefully adorned in festive array.  Just to the right of the empty fireplace, is our imitation Christmas tree decorated as ornately and majestically as ever. To the far left, in the next room, is a second tree – a real one – a touch of the Victorian. But my eyes are diverted to the view outside the big picture window on my right. The sun is shining brightly, and the sky is cerulean blue without a cloud in sight. The trees are mostly bare except for the traces of icy snow that line the bigger branches, and of course the evergreens off in the distance. The ground is still completely snow-covered, and although glistening in the sunshine, the pure, unspoiled look of the freshly fallen stuff has gone.

And I’m thinking, not of the beauty that captures my gaze, but of that which lies beneath: the cold, hard ground, callous and unyielding. The snow provides a superficial and transient covering, but the ground is still cold, hard, callous and unyielding. It’s like many a human heart. My heart, I know, has been affected by the cold; hardened by the subtle deceitfulness of sin and the tantalizing treasures that glimmer in the darkness. I have been swayed, at times, by popular opinion and desensitized by godless dissipation; I have allowed my soul to be satisfied with emptiness and my heart, consequently, has grown callous and unyielding. But I like the snow because it covers everything and makes beautiful, that which is sometimes barren and lifeless. I like the snow because it makes (even) me look attractive for a while. Snow is like the mask I wear. It’s like the fences we erect and the walls we build; the beautiful facade that hides all our blemishes and our stains and our ugliness. But snow is fleeting. It doesn’t last. It all melts away revealing once again the harsh reality of the cold, hard ground. The only hope is to await the arrival of spring.

And so it is with us. Our only hope is to await the arrival of spring – the promise of new life. As we acknowledge the state of our hearts, confess our need to be made alive and believe in the power of Jesus Christ to make us new creatures, something extraordinary happens: we are strangely warmed as our hearts begin to soften and our spirits begin to yield. The callousness begins to disappear as we are adorned with the character of Christ. Suddenly we find that we don’t long for the fleeting beauty of the snow to cover us anymore. We don’t have to build barriers and walls and fences. We don’t need the fugacious facades to hide behind because we are becoming beautiful, just as, in the beginning, we were all intended to be.

Soon it will be summer again. And once again the land around me will be teeming with lush green grass and tall flourishing trees. The gently rolling, blue hills in the distance and the misty rays of sunshine forming arbitrary boundaries around the fields will complete the perfect backdrop for this idyllic setting.

Summer again – because God, in His faithfulness, brought to life that which was dead.