(Don't worry! This picture is not looking out my back window. It was taken during a trip to New Mexico a few years ago).
Only in Oklahoma do schools close the night before anticipating a snow or ice storm.
With schools closed, I didn't have to help at the book fair and I actually sat down to write a blog.
This predicted snow storm reminds me of waiting. The anticipation builds! Like waiting for an exciting trip, you plan,
pack, and wait. Finally, you get to
enjoy the much awaited voyage.
It also highlights “prediction.” In Oklahoma, you really never know the actual
forecast for weather. Poor weather
men. They really try. I guess people think they are God, the only
One who can accurately forecast the weather.
One degree can be the difference between rain and ice, between snow
storm and flood. I find it ironic that
people will complain about the forecasters, yet still listen to them. I think the weathermen (and women) deserve
more grace. If everyone prepares for
snow and we never get it, better than not being prepared and it comes.
With a snow storm predicted, people rush to the stores and
the gas pump to prepare. The fool
doesn’t prepare. He drives on a low gas
tank daring the weather to change. He
can deny it all he wants, but it does not change the truth. When the snow begins (when the forecaster are
actually right), the fool can continue to deny the truth or change his mind and
prepare. In some cases, the snow may too
quickly for him to be safe. Better to
prepare than dare.
Preparing for a snow storm reminds me of preparing for
Jesus’ return.
Even though the Bible promises the day (or night) will come,
some people live in denial. The fool
chooses to live lives as if they will never be judged for their actions that
separate them from a holy God. Sadly,
when Jesus comes, it will be too late to prepare.
Others prepare wrongly.
Everyone would laugh at the woman at the carwash the day it is predicted
to snow. Does she know the
forecast? Or does she have an obsession
for a clean car? Is she preparing
correctly?
Similarly, some people believe if they just “clean
themselves up”, try their very best, perform good deeds, they will be prepared
for Jesus. Are they preparing correctly?
The Bible shares the way to prepare, the only way. Yes, one must be “clean.” However, the Bible tells us we cannot clean
ourselves. The only way to be clean is
through forgiveness. So how can you have
forgiveness? Hebrews 9:22b says, “without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Why blood?
From the beginning of the Bible (Gen 3), God taught the penalty for sin
is death. In the garden, Adam and Eve
disobeyed God. They tried to cover their
shame themselves, with fig leaves.
However, God showed them they couldn’t become clean before God in their
own way. God provided the way. He killed animals and covered Adam and Eve
with the animals’ skins. Animals’ blood
was shed for the forgiveness of sin.
Adam and Eve should have died for their sin, but the animals died in
their place.
Later, when God gave the Israelites the Ten
Commandments, He also gave them a way to have forgiveness. God instructed the people to build a
tabernacle (dwelling place for God). One
special room, the most holy place, contained a wooden box covered with
gold. The lid, called the mercy seat,
had two cherubim (angels) facing each other.
God dwelt between the cherubim.
For the people to have forgiveness, God required the High Priest to kill
a perfect goat, catch the goat’s blood, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat.
What an appropriate name, mercy seat. Mercy is when we don’t get what we
deserve. The people deserved death for
their sin (the penalty for sin is death).
Yet, God allowed the goat to die in their place.
The name of this yearly ceremony: The Day
of Atonement (Leviticus 16). A day that sins
of the people were atoned, “purged of sin, wiped clean .“[1]
Then the next day, the people would return
to more sacrifices for their daily sins bringing sacrifices of animals to the altar
of burnt offering (Leviticus 4). God’s
continual message: The penalty for sin
is death. There must be blood for the
forgiveness of sins. The animals died in
place of the people.
All of the lessons of forgiveness before Jesus were preparing the people for Jesus.
When John the Baptist saw Jesus (John 1:29)
he proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Jesus: the perfect Lamb, sinless. Jesus: the perfect sacrifice, a man (yet,
also God) dying in the place of a man (or woman). Jesus: the substitute for me. I should die (spiritually separated after my
physical death) for my sin. Yet, Jesus
died in my place.
I could write pages on the details of Jesus being our final
High Priest (Hebrews 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10).
I will let you read more if you are snowed in today (even if you aren’t
snowed in).
Some of my favorite verses are Hebrews 9:24-26:
“24 For Christ did not enter into a holy
place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven.
He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. 25 And
he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest
here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of
an animal. 26 If that had been necessary, Christ would have had
to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time,
he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a
sacrifice.”
Jesus’ death provided a way for us to have forgiveness of
sin. If we believe he died on the cross
in our place, turn from our way of pleasing God, and ask Jesus to forgive us
and take control of our lives, each of us can be prepared for His return.
Jesus provided a way and promises to return. Unlike unpredictable forecasts, when Jesus
gives us a promise, we know He will keep it.
John 14: 1-6 says “Do not let your heart be
troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In
My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have
told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself,
that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And
you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas
*said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the
way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me.
Are you prepared for Jesus?
Or are you preparing in your own way?
Do not be a fool. Prepare today!
And yes, we are now getting snow. Reminds me of the scripture, "Wash me and I will be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7)
[1]
Mounce, William D. Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Word. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.
