It’s mid February and we’ve been without our radiator heat for four weeks come tomorrow. Thankfully, it’s nearly fixed. We’ve made do with an electric blanket, round the clock fires, and a few electric space heaters. It has snowed every week since we’ve lost heat. So, as a person who is home more often than most, the cold has been on my mind quite a bit. Sometimes it has even been colder inside our house than outside. Despite our shivering limbs, we have welcomed the snow every time. Why? Because it’s beautiful. It’s almost magical.
The first batch of snow this year was the heaviest. As we slipped and slid home, I gazed at the world around us, which had been transformed by shimmering flakes of white. I began to observe that blankets of snow have a tendency to make things beautiful. Shanty houses and mansions alike were cloaked with the pure radiance of the snow, making them equally beautiful because of the identical apparel they donned.
The objects underneath all had different stories. Standing alone, some were beautiful works of art and architecture, with few flaws to show. Yet others were broken down places where life was not quite as vibrant as it was once. Perhaps some of those dilapidated dwellings were even the nicest abodes known to the town in days gone by, but their beauty had long been forgotten. Nevertheless, all of the places were none quite as beautiful as when they had the beautiful white, sparkling shrouds draped upon them.
Covered. A world that was covered. Covered with beauty for all who passed by to behold.
Covered. That’s what I am. Covered by the blood of Jesus transformed into a brilliant robe of righteousness. Me. As I am. Covered. Transformed. I may remember what it looked like underneath before He came to cover me, but He doesn’t. He just sees pure, clean beauty that has transformed a life in need of it.
When Christ puts His robes of righteousness on us, the unsightly repairs that we are desperately in need of are veiled with comeliness. Maybe we had a touch of beautiful in us before that was unseen because of all the ugliness surrounding it. Maybe there was nothing beautiful about us. Regardless, when we open the package of His righteousness, put it on, and replace any notions of goodness we had about ourselves with His Goodness, He makes us beautiful. He makes us new when we are wearing His garments. The old fades away, and we are given a fresh appearance and identity…white and pure as freshly fallen snow.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3: 11