Winter Snow

It is funny how God can take a rough day, filled with stress and things that don't go the way you had planned, and reveal His gentle beauty through written words. 

The girls and I have been reading Max Lucado's "A Cosmic Christmas" over the past few days.  As I read through that last pages I found my chest grow tight, breaths draw short, and tears stream down my face.   I found myself completely surprised and overwhelmed by the pure love of my Heavenly Father. 

The solution to man's sin and separation from our Heavenly Father was the Word made flesh.  Christ incarnate.  The King of kings wrapped in an infant's flesh, cradled in his mother's arms. 

Surely there was a mistake.  The night of our Savior's birth was not filled with fanfare or a large crowd anxiously waiting to see the King.  There were no trumpets announcing the royal birth.  How could the world, who had been clinging to prophecies of old and the promise of the Messiah, miss this grand birth? 

Because God has something much bigger in mind.  And, like almost everything else He does, it was not the way man would brought the Savior into this world.  But, then again, isn't that the problem?  The reason for our need of a Savior?

Oh, Jesus could have come in fast and furious.  He could have come in with all of his power and glory filling the night.  He could have just appeared and not even included Mary and Joseph in the grand redemption plan. 

But that is not the way it happened.

I imagine all of heaven waiting, with baited breath, for the glorious appearance of the King.  I imagine silence as they waited to hear the first cry of the Christ child.  I imagine Gabriel and Michael standing in the stable leading the angelic choir singing...

Glory, Glory, Glory to God in the highest. 

No.  This night was far from what we expected.  And I would venture to say quite different than what the angels expected.  But rest assured, it was exactly as God had planned.

He sent His son as a helpless babe.  The redemption of mankind would come through the cross that this tiny infant would one day carry.

To my finite mind, this is impossible to fathom. 

Our Savior could have come with the royalty he justly deserves.   

No, He came like winter snow.  Quiet. Soft. Slow.  Falling from the sky in the night to the earth below.

Beautiful. Pure. Holy. Salvation.


Winter Snow by Chris Tomlin and Audrey Assad