The White Easter

My heart and mind weren't prepared for Holy Week. The colorful Easter baskets and decorations I annually set out each year were still buried in their bin in the closet. My mind had been preoccupied instead of thoughtfully focused on the season.

Holy Week had been cold, literally, with chilly March temperatures biting the air. I sat at work one day during that week and glanced out the full glass windows revealing the world outside. I felt physically sick, discouraged and tired. Snowflakes had been falling intermittently all day. Not favorable of cold air or slick, white roadways, I'd mostly disregarded the falling flakes and ignored people's disbelieving complaints of "Snow!? In spring!?" After all, it was only the end of March. When did anything in life follow a set schedule on a calendar?

But looking up from my work---feeling sensitive to the stress inside me and indifferent to the world outside me---the snow suddenly increased---no longer simple falling flurries easily overlooked, but large, whirling flakes, heavily pouring from the heavens and dancing through the air above a barren earth. Wild beauty that momentarily breathed peace to the turmoil inside me.

Snow in spring. The earth rebelling. Didn't the earth also rebel on that fateful day of Jesus' death---darkness covering the land, rocks splitting and the ground trembling violently?

This year, Holy Week didn't arrive with warm sunny days and birds singing cheerily the song of Easter. It arrived with snow---pure, white, and clean---a fresh reminder of the assurance in Isaiah 1:18:
"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."

Snow falling at Easter time? Yes. It seemed fitting.