This morning we celebrated Easter at the United Reformed Church in Hinckley, England. The Reverend Malcolm Clarke led a wonderful time of worship, revealing a God-given, child-like heart. The church has a small, dynamic congregation, and Malcolm seemed to know each of them very well. As he spoke he frequently made eye contact with people throughout the congregation when he knew what he was speaking about related to them personally. We also were very impressed with how much international mission work the church supported as much of the early part of the service was dedicated to discussing ongoing projects in Madagascar and other parts of the world.
As you can see in the above picture, England was greeted this Easter morning with a very unusual sight – accumulated snow. The entire grounds of the King’s Lodge were covered with a thin layer of gorgeous, white snow. The snow inspired Malcolm to think upon Isaiah 1:18:
“Come now, let us reason together,”
says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
Isn’t it fantastic how God blessed us with a picture from nature of what Easter really means? We arose to find the world trimmed in the whitest of substances and could so easily reflect upon what it meant to have Jesus’ blood cover our sins, making us as pure as the whitest of snows and the cleanest of wool. Praise God for His creative genius and for revealing Himself (speaking to us) through creation.