Did Jesus Have to Shovel Snow?
Today, as I was trying to clear snow out of our driveway, so that our daughter and son-in-law could park their car behind ours when they came tonight, I found myself lapsing into self pity a bit. After all, it was the fifth day of fighting the white stuff; I was feeling my age; my back was complaining again. Each load seemed to weigh more, even though I tried to take less.
Then I resorted to the stratagem I employ when I am slipping into a “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” mood; I asked, Does Jesus know about this?
From one standpoint, of course, the answer is, No. He almost certainly never had to remove two feet of snow from the entrance to his father’s carpenter’s shop. He wouldn’t understand my particular challenge; nor did he live to be sixty-five.
As I loaded and raised another shovel-full, I said, “I am doing some pretty heavy lifting here.” Suddenly it struck me: Jesus himself knows about heavy lifting! At least from the time that John the Baptist cried out, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes [carries, bears] away the sin of the world,” Jesus was burdened with the immense weight of our transgressions and the guilt they entail.
Then, he carried that huge load in his body up to the cross and, for six terrible hours, he bore the weight of the sorrow, sadness, and sin of countless people, from Adam until the end of time. Just when it seemed unbearable, the indescribable weight of God’s righteous wrath fell upon him, and he was deprived of his Father’s presence. And all this so that our sins could be made “whiter than snow.”
Yes, Jesus knows all about it. How petty then did my self-absorption seem, and how priceless his selfless service.
Jesus removed much, much, more than snow out of the way to the Father’s house.