"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

Do you know what our chances are, in Port Hope, any given year, of having a white Christmas? We are in the 61-75% range. Where I hale from, on the good side of the state, the chances rise to 76-90%.

For those, who live in Chicago, the chances of a white Christmas are 41-50%. In St. Louis, they are 11-25%. And, in Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, and Miami, the chances range from bah to humbug.

We find ourselves dreaming of a white Christmas simply because it is pretty. Otherwise, for traveling purposes, we don’t wish slippery roads upon ourselves. For shoveling purposes, we would rather see the concrete of the sidewalk. For heating purposes, we will take temperatures that stand no chance of producing flakes.

There’s something about a fresh snow that is romantic and pretty. But, a white Christmas is more than romantic and pretty. After having had the first handful of snows, the land isn’t as lush and lovely as it is in spring, summer, and autumn. After the first falling and melting of snow, the formerly growing and green lawns are matted and turning brown. The dirt is muddy. The plows have thrown gravel onto the grass next to the road. And, like so many golfers, snowblowers have sliced divots from the earth.

The murky, muddy, messy earth is a picture of your sinful nature. When you look at yourself closely in the mirror, you want to see the lush and lovely acts of goodwill toward men, of the Golden Rule, but you see way too much of the matted and brown acts of self-centeredness—the very me-and-my-family focus which had you going overboard on gifts and goodies, decorations and meals, for those in your family tree, but way under-board in giving to those in need among your fellow man who are not of your family tree.

When you consider your life, truly and honestly—when you measure your life against the holy measure of the Word of God—you see the spiritual equivalent of what the snow covers this time of year: a murky, muddy, mess.

God’s white Christmas is about His making everything pure in Jesus Christ. He knows how you view your world, and so He gives this promise to you, as He gave it through the prophet Isaiah, seven hundred years before Jesus was born of the virgin Mary: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

Jesus came to cover your sins so that, in the sight of His Father, you are as white as snow. Take note of this. Jesus did not come to remove your sinful nature, but to cover it with His holy nature. That’s why the picture that He gave is so perfect: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." As the snow covers the murky, muddy, messy earth, it doesn’t remove the murk and mud and mess. The mess is still there, and when the snow is removed the mess shows itself, once more.

Here is the importance of not only becoming a Christian, but remaining a Christian. As long as you are in Christ, your sins, though they would have you appear a scarlet, bloody mess of a person, remain covered so that you appear to God the Father as snowy-white as the holiness of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

And, here comes the beauty of what your Savior began with His Christmas birth. So that He could make you holy as the white covering of snow, He had to become scarlet with the blood of your sin. He had to become the murky, muddy mess of your sin.

As He was cut off from His mother in the cutting of his umbilical cord, He was cut off from His Father in His hanging upon the cross, where, in His Father’s eyes, His Son, Jesus, was the worst sinner that could be, for He carried your sins, and all sins, in His own flesh.

In His resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven, Jesus was given power over your sin and Satan, so that He could give you His salvation. From heaven, He showered you with the covering of His pure snow in the Sacrament of Baptism. At His font, He covered you with His holy nature through the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, His Father in heaven is your Father in heaven. Now, your heavenly Father sees your sins no more, but sees you as you see the world when a fresh snow falls: pure and clean, covering the messy earth underneath.

In His resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven, Jesus was given power to give His body and blood in the Sacrament of Communion. Just as He descended to earth to be conceived in the womb of His mother, Mary, so Jesus descends to earth to be conceived in the bread and wine of Communion. Thus, you eat and drink of the One who was given the name which means what He came to do: Jesus, the Lord saves. In Communion, His body and blood provides a fresh covering of His salvation snow over your murky, muddy, messy sinfulness.

But, once again, He doesn’t remove it; He covers it. Here is the importance of worshiping the Lord Jesus with great zeal—with the zeal which propelled the shepherds to leave their flocks in the field and investigate that about which the angels spoke.

Snow melts under the heat of the sun. Faith and forgiveness melts under the heat of temptation, under the trials of life, under the things in which you are especially weak, in which you sin and offend your Lord and each other.

When God called you to be His holy child, He covered you with the white snow of Christ’s holy nature. He didn’t remove your sin. He didn’t transform you from being a sinner to being perfectly holy, like Jesus.

Though your sins were like scarlet, He covered you to be as white as snow, but, underneath, you’re still a murky, muddy, mess of a person.

That’s why you don’t want to only worship on Christmas and Easter, but every chance you can get—every Sunday, every holy day—because you need the snowy covering of Jesus to keep you holy in the sight of your heavenly Father; because the devil, the world, and your own sinful nature are constantly working to melt Jesus from your life. If they do, you will be exposed to God as the sinner that you are. If you are exposed to God, your scarlet sins will mean a bloody death of damnation.

But, you, children of God, have been called by the Gospel Jesus Christ, washed in His Baptism, and kept fed in His Communion, so that you are covered with the snowy-white holy nature of the Savior, born of Mary, this holy day.

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

It’s a white Christmas for you, every Christmas, whether or not the weather outside is frightful. It’s a white Christmas for you, and a white New Year, and a white Easter, and a white Fourth of July, and a white every day of the year, for Jesus Christ has you covered. Amen.