After an already long Thanksgiving weekend, I was hopeful that my kids could extend their break one more day with a Snow Day, this past Monday. The temperatures were falling and the forecast predicted a 80-100% chance of snow for most of the day, but there were no closures in our region of the Tri-state.
I mentioned this to my 9th grader during the dark, morning commute to school that day and he said, “No way! Snow Days are a thing of the past. Now that so many districts are able to do stuff online, rumor is that it will just be a virtual learning day for everyone. No more Snow Days.”
The news stunned me. How could there be no option for hearing those most coveted winter words – equally beautiful to child and teen alike – blessed words heard in a sleepy haze even before the morning alarm went off: “It’s a Snow Day. No school, today. Roll back over”?
Is it true? Will there be no more hunkering down, loafing in pjs for the day (which some have already perfected during this season of COVID)? No sledding hill with friends for an exhausting afternoon and then arriving home, numb, ready to sip on a warm drink to thaw you out? Have our online and virtual capabilities relegated the Snow Day to be a thing of the past? I can’t imagine.
For centuries, and often even today, humanity thought they had God figured out. Everything they did was only to stay in God’s good favor. Worship, sacrifice, and obedience in daily living was to appease a God who could become angry if people wavered from the demands and commands of The Almighty.
God promises otherwise. God creates out of love and joy, declaring “It is good!” over critters, creatures, and creation. God comforts through compassion and restoration. God leads with justice and equity. These are some of the attributes of God we especially witness during these weeks leading up to Christmas.
Advent is a season of waiting and hope. Like a child, longing for the gift of a Snow Day, we watch and wait with eager anticipation for the arrival of Jesus – and he doesn’t disappoint. With the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus created a seismic shift which would change the course of history for all time.
In their video about hope (www.bibleproject.com/videos/yakhal-hope/), the Bible Project declares, “Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus to look forward!” Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection give us a forecast which pull us into the realities of God.
We hear it from the opening chapter of Luke, when Mary declares,
“I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God…
His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
(Luke 1:46-55, The Message)
God doesn’t make empty promises or speculative forecasts. Instead, God moves into the neighborhood and gets to work instilling hope, creating joy, waging peace, and revealing love. With Christ, life will never be the same.
Watching and waiting with you,
Pastor Lowell