March 2010

Dear Friends,

As we have been traveling through the season of Lent, a time of reflection, retrospection, and repentance, I have found myself watching the snow swirling around outside my window on the many storm-white frozen afternoons we’ve had of late. The view from my window is always lovely, from a distance, but upon close examination, which is what we’re doing at Lent, one notices trash here and there among the bushes, cigarette butts virtually everywhere thrown from car windows, and the detritus of sinful humanity’s waste and pollution lining the street curbs. The snow is a welcome relief to the picture -- our sins are covered, as the Psalm says, whiter than snow. That well-known quote comes from Psalm 51, a song commonly used to inaugurate the season of Lent:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

The metaphor is an apt one, insofar as “white as snow” covers a multitude of smudges from our line of sight. It’s not meant to suggest that having light-colored skin is preferable to dark, as some foolish and sinful people have suggested. It’s about dirt being made clean, and the contrast of the dark of living outside of God’s light. Interestingly, all the snow we’ve had recently has put me in mind of how easily we fall back into sin, even after we’ve confessed our sins and been assured of pardon. I watch my beautifully pristine neighborhood streets begin to collect dirt and dust almost immediately, and very shortly, the winter wonderland is a muddy mess thrown up onto every car that goes by. How like our attempts to remain clean of sin! We keep slipping up, and getting dirty again. But just as the snow has kept coming this season, so the Lord keeps coming at us with forgiveness and grace, drawing us in the spirit’s tether.

I hope Lent is a cleansing time for you, but be under no illusion that, having had one bath, one need never have another. Let us gratefully keep coming back to the Lord, asking yet again for forgiveness, and the strength to do better this time. “Dear Lord, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” The snow is beginning to fall over us before we even utter the prayer. Praise be to God.

Love and light,

Martin

To read Martin's letters from past months, please click here.