Today is a day to watch the snow falling in big lacy flakes, softly falling, no raging wind, no dark clouds, only snow continually swirling and gently covering everything. It is just cold enough to snow–2 degrees warmer and this would be rain instead of sparkling snow.

Today reminds me of a day in 1975 when I was nearly ready to give birth to my son. I could say that I was more than ready, but he was not. I so wanted a new dress for Easter, which would fall on March 30, but I did not want to buy a new maternity dress. One of my friends offered me a dress she had. It was bright pink, of the new “miracle” fabric polyester, and it had a white collar. Because it was sleeveless and the weather was still chilly, I bought a white crocheted shawl to cover my arms. On Easter morning, it was a day much like today, snowing big puffy flakes. I wore that dress anyway, and I was grateful for the shawl. My baby was born the following week, April 8. Perhaps I still have that shawl, a reminder of that day.

Today is Palm Sunday, a day to commemorate the day that Jesus of Nazareth rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not the steed of a king, but the beast of burden used by common people. Still, the crowds of people hailed him as a king that day. He knew what was coming, they did not. This week, we will commemorate those events–his celebration of Passover with his closest friends, his trial, his suffering, and his painful death on that instrument of torture, the cross. Next Sunday, we will celebrate his miraculous resurrection from the dead. Does it sound fantastic? But, I know it to be true.

Today is a day to rest, to contemplate, to ponder life, and death, new life, and eternal life, to think of God, and of his great love for people, to remember a lacy white shawl over a bright pink springtime dress, and to see the snow in springtime covering everything in sparkling white. God said to his people long ago, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”