Not everyone is Iowa likes snow, but nearly everyone will admit that new snow is beautiful. Fresh snow is so amazingly pure. There is a whiteness and smoothness to a fresh December snow that is unparalleled.
Iowans like myself also know that February or March snow is usually quite ugly. I'm not talking about the newly fallen snow. I'm talking about the snow that has been sitting there unmelted for a few weeks or months. It is grimy and grey, not pure and white. Given enough time the purity of snow turns ugly and dark grey if not even the infamous yellow.
The story of mankind is somewhat like snow.
Adam and Eve started off so pure. There was no impurity to be found, like fresh snow in the middle of an empty field. But as we know this purity would not last long. God gave them one single command and they rather quickly broke it staining themselves like the snow pushed to the side of the road by a plow.
Humanity has a knack for staining itself and the whole universe with it. If we're honest while we've created many wonderful things using the raw resources of the world around us, we've probably ruined as much if not more. There are few places on the planet that are more beautiful because people showed up there (although we were ordained to beautify God's creation).
So, when God made a covenant with us we ruined it. Read through the Old Testament and you'll see time and again how quickly the people blew it.
What we needed was a covenant not contingent upon us.
"The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel,
after that time declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more." Hebrews 8:8b-12 (and Jeremiah 31:31-34)
We have so much sin based entropy in us that we naturally ruin things. So, God made a new covenant with us where He gave us new desires. He writes His laws on our hearts and in our minds. He gives us the rebirth necessary to follow Him. He renews us under the new covenant. The problem with the old covenant was never God, it was always us; so God solves that problem Himself.
This is why Jesus came to the earth. We needed Him to initiate a new covenant that we couldn't screw up. We needed Him to create something purer than December snow that we couldn't soil. Thank God that He sent His Son to intervene for us. Give thanks that God forgives our wickedness and remembers our sins no more today.
No comments:
Post a Comment