Look here carefully into the candles of Advent,
what do you see within those four flames?
Look closer still, at the center, the Christ Candle.
Do you perhaps see what they represent, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love? Some of us have been meditating on those themes to get ready for Christmas; do you see such things within? Do you see Christ surrounded with our preparation, Christ flanked by those presents which he brings, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love—which he kindles in our hearts?
For that matter, what do you see in the altar candles? Can you see God in common earthly elements, bread and wine? Can you see and taste the point of Christmas ate and drank, God with us.
And what of those candles in your hands?
You anticipate the wax slipping through the little cardboard shield solidifying on your knuckles, the flame dancing there with you—calling you as well to the dance of Christmas, calling you to bear witness to the Christ Child in the manger.
Just a few days after solstice, the shortest of short days, when the sun seemed to almost never appear, we gather together with these lights, reminding us that the night will not last always
—and that the literal comfort of that reality, also speaks to a metaphoric truth
—the truth that Christ’s birth illuminates the world even in the most stinging of shadows
—in a world overshadowed with big and meddlesome world powers and personalities such as Emperor Augustus,
-a world where there is no room in the inn for weary travelers,
-a world in which God seems to be an oppressive force, or silent, or even absent.
In such a world as that, in such a world as our own, a child is born, a small holy spark hallows the whole world!
Hope:
From the first candle of hope, I can peer through the long darkness of space and time and see people doing the very same thing—peering, peering through time and waiting…
Waiting for the one for whom angels sing, the Hope of the world heralded by heaven!
And look there, how He kindled the shepherd’s curiosity. His existence moves the shepherds from field to manger.
They wonder, could he be the one? Maybe, and they dream bigger still, and say Yes!
The one who lights up the night sky—the one whose story stuns and amazes everyone the shepherds tell.
Yes, I peer into the first candle and see signs of hope!
Peace:
Look at this second candle, Peace… elusive… isn’t it?
Did you know that anyone under 17 has never known an America at peace?
Well, Isaiah’s generation felt a similar pressure, and was put in a similar place—and called out from that war weary place for an end to oppression, that violence would be burnt up, they called for the “Prince of Peace.”
And hundreds of years after Isaiah the angels sing back and blows our mind—God showing up in a trough!
Such a strange thing God does—it should shake us, as it did those shepherds, and later the whole world.
Christmas shakes the world’s foundation even as it calls to our terrified souls and says, “Be No Afraid.” It calms us even as it transforms the values of the whole world in a spiritual maelstrom—God with us!
Joy:
Look again—Joy, joy jolting the heavens, an angel descending with promise of a newborn child—God with us. Tidings of great joy, our hearts heaped to overflow with good news!
Sung, this song of angels, praise to the highest heavens, the highest heavens now here, hallowing our earth, making holy human habitation.
See too this truth, proclaimed not only by angels, but also from the rough lips of these shepherds, spoken in the midst of the stink of wool and animal waste, roughly spoken for a rough world in need of such speech.
Love
Look as well at the tallest of our blue candles—Love—Perhaps it hasn’t burnt long enough—only lit this morning, late and almost crowded out—Mary holding all these things in her heart, cherishing, loving what God is doing.
Loving that God is lighting a fire of love through her—loving the precious gift God is giving us. Love incarnate in Jesus Christ, born to us.
Then look to the central flame, marking that we have finally arrived
—Hope, Peace, Joy, Love
—Angels, Shepherds, Holy Family
—all of us gathered to hear the Good News.
All of it, all of us, peering in from different sides, that we might more clearly focus on him, on Christ Jesus, born of Mary, found by Shepherds, Announced by Angels.
Our Hope, Peace, Joy, Love.
Look too over here to my right—where we will eat together
—2 more candles.
In their flames we can see blood and body given, bread and wine provided—both bringing us close to him, both allowing us to believe that it is true
—God with us, in this, the common everyday—a child, a manger, a family on the move.
We don’t need to look to a galaxy far far away, or embellish the facts of our lives—the stuff of life itself is holy and held by God and holds God. God is vulnerable—God is present in a baby boy—in bread and wine—in the fullness of our lives.
And in a few minutes, you’ll be holding candles, holding a flame—look there too, how it started with a single flame, just a spark—yet it spread.
What started on Christmas morning—what was witnessed first by shepherds—spread—the holiness of Jesus, spread to all the earth.
Good news for All people.
Amen.
