Out Our Way: Clippers and chinooks - Revelation 21:4

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain; for the old order of things has passed away."

Out our way, winters come hard and fast. I recall a week for Halloween when an Alberta Clipper came roaring down and dropped several feet of snow in a few hours. The temperature dropped to some 30 below and power was shut down for hours and even days in some areas. This is the Hi-Line. This is Montana. This is reality. We live in an area where the old timers like to say, "There's nothing between the North Pole and us but a barbed wire fence ... and sometimes somebody leaves the gate open." Over in the "California" section of western Montana where the rich urban folks from the coasts have started to move, the realtors always look forward to the bonanza of "spring flowers" (For Sale signs) that pop up after these urban folks experience their first Montana winter and the properties are recycled and more commissions made when the next batch of "Coasties" arrive in the spring. Montana winters are no joke .

But Montanans are not just a hardy breed, we also know about chinooks. These warm winds that come along from time to time grant Montanans several "spring thaws" throughout the winter. Working cows in the Bear Paws after a Clipper has ravaged the area means breaking ice so they can drink, hauling in hay so they can eat, and checking calves so they don't freeze.

But we also know it won't last, because we know about chinooks. The temperature shifts from minus 3 to 40 above in a few hours and the warm wind blows across the plains. I see young college and high school students in shorts walking about campus and town in February when the chinooks begin to blow.

The famous Montana cowboy artist, Charlie Russell, drew that famous scene of a defiant longhorn surrounded by wolves, refusing to give up. It is titled "Waiting for a Chinook." Yup. Every Montanan knows that feeling and even in the midst of the worst Clipper, we know in the end, the Clipper always backs down to the chinook.

The Apostle John, whom most scholars credit as the author of the Book of Revelation, lived in the midst of what we might call a "spiritual Alberta Clipper." Of the 12 Apostles, only John remained alive. Everyone else had been put to death by those who rejected the Gospel. Even the great Paul, who had done so much to spread the faith amongst the gentiles, had been arrested, imprisoned and eventually executed. Christians were being persecuted by both pagans and Jews. It was indeed a dark time and only John remained of the original followers of Christ. Imagine being a tiny flame in the midst of a terrible winter storm. That was John. The "Clipper" raged all about him; but he still expected and waited for the "chinook."

Read the Book of Revelation and you do not read words of despair, but of hope. Indeed, not just hope, but expectation and confidence. The "Clipper" was a reality that he did not deny - but so was the "chinook."

The Holy Spirit is often described as a great wind - the word is "pneuma" and is used to describe both wind and breath. I suggest a new word, "chinook,"might be appropriate as well. Every Montanan knows that incredible feel of a warm spring wind blowing across the ice and snow and melting them in the middle of winter. As terrifying as the Alberta Clippers are when they come howling out of the arctic and pulverize the prairie with snow, ice, and freezing temperatures, we endure and wait, for we know the chinooks are also coming.

Yes, death is real as are tears and mourning. Alberta Clippers are also real. But while they are real, they are not the whole of reality. The Clipper is real, but so is the chinook which always overcomes the Clipper. Death, sorrow and mourning are real as well, but so is the promise of God. Though John saw the persecution of the Church, the martyrdom of his fellow disciples and many others; he also knew the "chinook winds were blowing to counter the Clipper." 2000 years later the "Clipper winds" still rise up to try to extinguish the flame of faith from time to time, but the " chinook winds of the Holy Spirit" also rise up to counter and eventually disperse the Clippers.

We Montanans understand the reality of the Clippers - but we also understand and trust the reality of the chinooks. Believers understand the reality of evil and the sinful nature of humanity - but we also understand and trust the reality of the Holy Spirit to challenge and eventually overcome the darkness. Even in January the warm winds of the chinook can blow and melt the ice that surrounds us.

Be blessed and be a blessing!

Brother John