Despite the Falling Snow: A Message of Hope for Christmas of 2016

Snow is a unique symbol.

On one hand, snow is often a symbol of purity (such as the expression “Pure as the driven snow,”) of innocence, of beauty and light.

On the other, snow is also a symbol of death, of Earth falling under the spell of sleep.

Snow lies heavy on the ground, burying the world like soil. It muffles sounds. Its arrival signals the changes that drive life away. The leaves fall, leaving the trees as though they were dead. Killing frosts droop the flowers, browning once vibrant petals, yellowing the grass. Animal life sleeps, or dies. Bears retreat to their dens, insects and spiders and reptiles disappear, and frogs lie at the bottom of ponds, their life signs stilling until they exist in a state of suspended animation. Not even their hearts beat.

Like they were dead.

Like the temperate Earth, our lives begin in season, we burst into bloom, then harvest, and as an inevitable part of the cycle, we die.

There is immense potency, then, in the image of a flower that blooms in the dark and the snow.

“Lo, how a rose e'er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung,
Of Jesse's lineage coming,
As men of old have sung.

It came a flow'ret bright
Amid the cold of winter
When half-spent was the night.
Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
This Rose that I have in mind.

And with Mary we behold it,
The Virgin Mother so sweet and so kind.
To show God's love aright,
She bore to men a Savior
When half-spent was the night.”

A flower that blooms despite the falling snow represents faith in redemption, the ultimate triumph of life over death.

It is a fitful faith, starting like a snorer in sleep.

Robert Graves describes it this way:

“She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half words whispered low;
As earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.”

For me, the religion of Christmastime is found in this image of mid-winter stirring.

Like snow, we have fallen. Our lives take form, condense as if the snow, trailing the cloudy glory from which we were born. But then, we are dragged downward to settle on the Earth, subject to winds of fate, part of the great force that has rendered the Earth itself dead.

And yet, despite our fallen state, Earth stirs. Hope remains in the soil, vital and alive and potent, thrusting through when least expected or likely.

We have the promised Savior, born as a rose blooming despite the cold cold winter and the darkened night, and we have each of us: half asleep, weakly whispering our love while our hope for redemption stirs like the Earth shooting forth grass and flowers despite being a winter wasteland.

Christ was born to save. His promise, is the promise of our life springing forth anew. It is found alone in His sacrifice.

What I invite you to reflect upon this Christmas day is the unique impact Christ's birth, death and resurrection have for you. While we are each under the spell of sleep and of death, of winter, our words of love mere half-words whispered low, our hours dark, and our faith a feeble stirring under the falling snow, because of why He came those many millennia ago, spring will come.