Dreaming of a White Christmas

Pasquale MingarelliBy Pasquale Mingarelli6 Minutes

Ever since my childhood I loved to experience a white Christmas. Growing up just south of Buffalo, New York, I had a lot of them, but not as many as you would think. I remember green ones too. According to the Weather Channel, the Buffalo area experiences a White Christmas 58 percent of the time. So, I did suffer through some green ones, but I preferred the white ones.

The Ghost of White Christmas Past

Most of my favorite Christmas memories are white. As the youngest of four, my siblings always had me wake up my parents. My mom would head out to the living room where the gifts were laid out on the floor underneath the tree. She would turn on the Christmas lights and open the curtains. Outside would be a blanket of white. Light snow falling would add to the feeling of Christmas. Dreaming of a white Christmas is fun, but experiencing one is better.

I remember playing with friends in the abundance of snow on the days off from school that surrounded Christmas and New Year’s. I believe to this day that kids who grew up in other climates lived deprived childhoods. They were free to dream of a white Christmas, while I often played in one.

Most of us no longer like snow as adults. We find it a hassle and we don’t like the cold. Only the adventurous ones among us like snow. I find myself to be one of those adventurous ones who normally can’t get enough snow. Unfortunately, I now live in Nebraska and feel deprived with our measly little average of 30 inches of snow a year. Winters do get cold here, but they’re mostly dry. I miss the snow sports and the beauty of the endless white.

Why a White Christmas?

So, if most adults don’t like snow, why do we dream of a white Christmas and wish upon others the famous line from the song, “And may all your Christmases be white”? Perhaps there’s something deeper we desire about that white. Maybe our soul longs for something magical that we see in white snow?

Picture your favorite Christmas cards. So many of them have a nostalgic image of a small house, town or country church covered in a new fallen snow. Some other cards may have a snow-covered forest setting with gentle animals. The nostalgic scene and the gentle animals touch us with their innocence and the white snow touches us with its purity. Innocents and purity: two things we long for and yet we know we don’t have.

God’s holiness stands as the pinnacle of purity. He created us to be in a pure relationship with Him, but we have sinned and lost our innocence (Genesis 1-3). With our innocence went our purity. We have no power to get them back within ourselves. When we see the that nostalgic Christmas card with pristine white snow we long for that purity and innocence in our lives.

We cannot get the innocence and purity back under our own efforts, but as the Bible tells us in Matthew 19:26, “With God all things are possible (NASB).” Through Jesus Christ we can get that purity back in our relationship with God. When we trust in Him, He makes us white as snow.

God’s Everlasting White Christmas

The book of Isaiah 1:18 says, “’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.’” What a miracle! Through faith in Christ, God makes us as pure as snow! Through Jesus, we don’t have to just dream of a white Christmas for our lives, we could have it forever.

Psalm 51 amplifies this even more when it says, “Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Forgiveness in Christ makes us even whiter than snow. Praise God!

What makes this image described in Psalm 51 all the more amazing is that the prophet King David wrote it after he had committed adultery and murder. Yet in complete humility and repentance he sought reconciliation and forgiveness from God. When he did, God made his soul whiter than snow!

You too can be whiter than snow for this Christmas and forevermore. Come to Christ in repentance and humility. Pray to Him. Ask Him for forgiveness. He will give it to you and make you pure.  Just Pray, “Dear Jesus, I turn from my sin and confess it to you. You are God. I want to follow You as my Lord and Savior.”

This Christmastime just don’t dream of a white Christmas, come to Jesus. “And may all your Christmas be white.”