I love snow. Even the 3 months of snow I experienced in Göttingen last year were not quite enough to deter me. Wintry landscapes, particularly those on fresh winter mornings, never cease to take my breath away. However, there is something quite sad, even tragic about the swift pace at which the sun sets, the curtains are drawn and families retreat into their central-heating warmed homes. Darkness brings a certain reality to the idyllic.
We become almost hemmed in and shut up by the perpetual lack of light. We long, at least to some degree or another, for the coming of sunshine, for Spring, for life and the freedom to leave our homes. Personally, it is during the winter months that I think more about the realities of life. For me, summer is always filled with activity. It is a breath of fresh air, one of freedom to enjoy the air, sun, sea, grass and just life in general, where I freely avoid thinking about harsh realities. Light and warmth bring a certain kind of freedom which I tend to enjoy and long for during the darkest of months. In Winter, it sometimes feels like everything is simply decaying and dead. Even the faintest of birdsong from the either hardy or 'home' birds is sort of bitter-sweet, a relief from the silent landscape yet also a memory of life which has, quite literally, flown away.
It is no wonder then that, for some, depression sets in most easily during Winter when all about us at times seems to be the picture of what we believe our lives to be: fruitless, even pointless. The trigger for such thinking should not and cannot be trivialised, but I believe that everyone can at least partly sympathise.
No human can function properly in darkness. It is plain that we need light and warmth, as does every living creature and plant, to live. But how we also need those darker, wetter, cooler, bleaker months not only to make the comparison clearer, but to actually provide room for hidden growth and a path to a fruitful life. There is hope just lying under the surface of the frost-hardened ground. The coming Spring's flowers are benefiting from the cold; Winter is essential for them.
Winter, as well as Spring and Summer months are essential in the Christian life, the former arriving more frequently than the latter. Yet there is hope during the bleak, long nights. We have a Saviour who was born to conquer, to drive back the darkness with His right hand and just as He commanded the light to shine forth at the beginning of Creation, so He will pierce the darkness that covers our sinful world with His glory. Winter can seem hopeless, it can drive us to despair and to morbid thoughts. Winter remains a God-given reminder of not only His control over creation in providing seasons for the growth of crops, but also of the result of life without Him. We are reminded of the curse of sin and death because all around us the earth appears to crumble and groan under the weight of darkness and the cold. Yet, there is hope. Hope which although formerly invisible, has become visible for anyone who digs a little deeper than the snow-laden surface.
Christmas reminds us that the coming of Jesus is the dawn of Spring.
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