Snow is magic in the desert. Our kids are giddy at the thought of it, scooping their bare fingers deep into the powdered crystals, sledding long after the thin layer has given way to packed and frozen grass. Playing every moment that they can, because you never know how long it is going to last, how fleeting this blanket is going to be.
Long enough to give us a two hour delay on Friday, to stay for Sunday.
"That's right! When it snows," one of my eighth graders turns to the sixth grade girl who is his frequent shadow, spilling over with suddenly remembered excitement, "we always...!" And, I don't think that either of them even realize that it isn't a sentence. Because, snow at church means snowball fights. It means sliding in the parking lot and stomping our way back into the building, shaking off ice crystals as we go.
It means fifth grade girls who see the shoes on my feet and slip theirs back on without a question. Music that is a little bit of a mess, until we sit down, and it is just the sound of their voices, and the mess is Holy too.
Whispers through the Bible story, as if they have yet to realize that sitting in the front row means that the presenter can hear every word that they are saying. Pens that stray from a piece of paper to the pages of my Bible. Wiggly girls who are doing their best to listen.
We've been practicing, this year, highlighting things in their Bibles. But, this is my Bible, and she doesn't have permission, and she knows she shouldn't, and something in me wants to rise up that is terribly un-grace filled. Something that wants to be less than lavish with this Joy that we are celebrating with verse cards and candy canes at the front doors. I almost stop her before I have the chance to see what she's marking.
Luke 15:1
"Then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him to hear Him."
We're about to move from this space to tuck ourselves under the stairs, light candles, color ornaments for our Jesse tree, wait for the one who brought ultimate reconciliation, and I am reminded to take a breath. Where there is lavish, ridiculous, out of control Grace, Joy seems to follow.
So, our cardboard tree dripping with stories and color, we blow out the candles and slip our way across the parking lot. Take pictures. Toss snow. Laugh and shiver and slide down the hill where we often play games. Duck back into the building just after service ends and pile ourselves and our belongings back into the 4th and 5th grade room. Circle up on the floor and play clapping games until the parents arrive.
Gather middle schoolers between services and throw snow until our fingers are numb and there is ice melting down our backs and our socks and we have to shake like dogs before we come in the door. Because, they know that snow on a Sunday means the best (and worst) kind of a snowball fight. One with no teams or preparation. No gloves or hats or jackets. Just powder clinging to our sweatshirts and our hair. Laughter. The easiest kind of joy.
They pull other leaders out of the building to join us or chase them across the parking lot, faces and fingers flush with cold. "What is your persuasion," the leader who is speaking pulls up a scene from The Polar Express, "on the big man?"
The kids just finished leading a worship set all on their own, and we're settled down on the driest patches of the floor. (Because, a hundred people who have just come in from taking pictures in the snow leave a lot of puddles.) And, this is a different kind of Grace, a different kind of Joy.
Grittier. Needing a little more time and space to be wrestled through.
"Doubt," she tells them, "can be the beginning of growth, or even the beginning of faith."
Because, life isn't linear, and neither is faith. Some of these ones who have spent the morning laughing and teasing each other will spend the afternoon in petty drama, and no one's family is quite what it appears to be on Sunday mornings. There are rough edges and raw wounds that an hour and a half doesn't begin to cover. But, every once in a while -- more often when we are looking for it -- it snows, and we find ourselves surprised by joy.
Sixth graders who curl up close during the lesson and breakout groups. High schoolers who spend their evening watching Charlie Brown and decorating hundreds of cookies to pass out at their schools. Sweep off tables. Shop vac popcorn off the floor. Sing along to Santa Clause is Coming to Town and Let it Go. Laugh and then stress out and then laugh some more. (And, probably stress a little more afterwards.)
Watch out for each other. Pray for each other. Sass each other. Wrestle with frustration and apathy and fear. Eat from a bowl of colored frosting with a plastic knife, and go straight to Dairy Queen afterwards, the way that they always do.
For today, Joy is loud and messy and a little bit goofy, tinged with the hurt and the reality that give it depth, completely ridiculous as a reaction...except for these two things: it snowed, and we are here to celebrate the One Who Restores All Things.
God With Us in this explosive, absurd, hopeful sort of a Joy.
