The Bible and snow

At the time this column was written several days ago, Southeast Missouri was enmeshed in its biggest snowstorm in years.

Many of us have heard the sound of scraping shovels, and we've heard squealing children enjoying sled rides this past week.

How welcome the white stuff is somewhat dependent on how you were reared.

Snow is more common in my home region of western Pennsylvania and was a familiar friend to my wife of more than 38 years, who grew up in what Keystone Staters refer to as the "snow belt" along Interstate 80.

The Holy Land

Snow may not come immediately to mind when a person thinks of Israel, an 8,522-square-mile somewhat narrow strip of terra firma.

Missouri, in land area, is 8.7 times larger than Israel.

As a one-time visitor to this Middle Eastern country, I can tell you the change in climate varies greatly from Haifa in the north to Qumran in the south.

In the week our family spent in Israel in December 2009, it was a bit chilly in Galilee, but in our travel south to the Dead Sea desert region, the weather had turned surprisingly warm.

Small country, yes, but with a wide variety of temperature change.

Snow is uncommon in Israel but just last week, snowfall was recorded in the capital of Jerusalem.

According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, 4 inches fell Wednesday in the city in which Jesus was crucified, an occurrence the country's oldest daily publication called "rare."

In mid-December 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry, now President Joe Biden's "climate czar," was temporarily waylaid during a Jerusalem visit by a 20-inch snowfall that brought down tens of thousands of trees, causing dayslong power outages in the city.

Kerry, the ex-Massachusetts U.S. senator, at the time called the storm reminiscent to a New England blizzard.

A normally 30-minute drive from Ramallah to Jerusalem took several hours to complete as snowplows worked feverishly to clear the roads.

Snow and Scripture

Snow is mentioned 20 times combined in the Bible, with 18 of those occurrences in the Old Testament.

Many biblical references to snow are commentary on its color, both positive and negative.

An example of the former: "So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous -- it had become as white as snow." (Exodus 4:6)

Snow is more often presented in a positive light in the Bible. To wit:

"Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:7)

Snow, in the latter case, is used metaphorically to refer to salvation, with "white" a reference to the cleansing of sin.

Jesus

The final two references to snow in the Bible have to do with post-resurrection appearances of the second person of the Trinity.

"Snow" is used to connote Jesus' majesty and power.

"(Jesus') appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow." (Matthew 28:3)

"(Jesus') head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire." (Revelation 1:14)

Observation

I've got snow in my beard these days, and I'm starting to see it as a positive thing.

I received a metaphorical ton of it in my Jackson yard, too, last week and despite the heart-hammering effort to remove it from my walkway, I recalled the salvific and powerful references to snow in Holy Scripture.

I told myself of Jesus' sin-clearing power as I furiously brushed the white precipitation off my windshield last week.

God is present in nature and He reminded us of it in a powerful way these past few days.