White as Snow
Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor
| “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.” Isaiah 1:18 Maybe you’re like me, every time it snows I think of this verse. As a child I remember being amazed at how white the snow was! It looked like there were diamonds in the snow as it sparkled from the sunlight. It would be so bright I struggled to look at it. Eventually my eyes would adjust to the brightness and I would stay outside to play. When I finally was so wet and cold, I couldn’t stand it anymore, I would come inside to warm up. But I would walk into the house and I could barely see! Everything seemed so dark because My eyes had adjusted to the brightness of the snow. We’re messed up. We do the things we know we aren’t supposed to do, and we don’t do the things we know we are supposed to do. This tendency towards pleasure, selfishness, and self-centeredness the Bible calls sin. Because we are sinners, we have a moral stain that we cannot erase or wash out on our own. It is like getting a black ink stain on my white dress shirt. I personally cannot go to a Mexican restaurant without getting a salsa stain on my shirt. It is inevitable. Imagine wearing the same shirt day after day, week after week and not being able to change it or wash it! No matter how hard we tried, eventually it would be disgustingly dirty. Left to ourselves, this is our human condition. We need to be cleansed but we can’t undo the past or go back in time. What can we do? This is the message of Christmas. We cannot go back in time and undo the past, but the God of the universe entered into time at that first Christmas to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. We are disobedient but Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Father. We are sinful but Jesus was completely without sin for his entire life. We break our promises, but Jesus kept every word that he ever said. We are unrighteous but he was perfectly righteous, the spotless Lamb of God. He entered into this world that first Christmas morning in order to bring us forgiveness. When Jesus died on the cross, he did so to take the full penalty for our sins and to absorb the full punishment that we deserve on the cross. The true horror of the cross was not his physical suffering but that in some mysterious way Jesus experienced the separation from the Father that we deserve to experience in hell. All of the punishment that we deserve was concentrated and poured out on Christ while he was on the cross. Jesus was born to die. His mission was so that we could be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness. The righteousness that we receive is an external righteousness. We are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. (Romans 4:5, 13:14; Philippians 3:9) It is this perfect righteousness that we are clothed with that enables us to stand before God forgiven and acceptable even though we still struggle with sin! Have we been made righteous? Have we become as white as snow? The answer is, “YES!” If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, the reality is that you stand before God accepted because you have been cleansed from all your sins and clothed with the spotless righteousness of Jesus! Merry Christmas! |
cacadmin
