Christmas Candles ("I am the light of the world…”)

Seventeenth Day of Advent

John 1:1-5 In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (New Living Translation)

Many years ago I visited a coal mine with a group of junior high school students and part of the experience was approximately one minute of utter darkness. As the lights went out I was amazed at how stunning total darkness is. Moving more than a few steps was precarious, not just because I thought I might trip or bump into something, but keeping my balance was difficult. Sounds were confusing and, though I was with people I knew, I felt very vulnerable. When the lights came on I was amazed at how turned around I’d become in just a few steps. And those who had not moved at all discovered they were looking up or down, or to the left or right of where they’d expected to be looking. Darkness, is disorienting, disconcerting and debilitating.

And so, since we can now produce light cheaply, abundantly and virtually anywhere, we live in a world awash in light. Every room, hallway and stairwell, is illuminated. Refrigerators and ovens light up when we open the door, and floodlights and spotlights flash on when something moves in the yard. Streetlights, traffic lights, neon signs, security lights, headlights, signal lights, strobe lights, flashlights, and emergency vehicle lights, have all but abolished night in our cities. We have lost the everyday experience of darkness, and with it I expect, some of our appreciation of light.

And so Christmas candles, that for our ancestors shone with a mysterious and comforting glow, casting halos of reassurance in the vast, nocturnal sea of darkness, can become for us, just a few more lights among millions of lights.

And yet, with just a little imagination even we can recover a sense of the wonder of light. Just think of that world of not so long ago where darkness shaped daily life. In that world everyone was half blind half the time. Little work could be done after sunset, and travelling at night was difficult and dangerous. Lighting up a whole room, let alone a whole house, was too expensive and difficult for most people, and a candle or small lamp was very special. It’s in this context that John writes of the “light [that] shines through the darkness, [that] the darkness can never extinguish...”.

At this, the darkest season of the year, our pagan forefathers lit bonfires, torches, lamps, and flames of all sorts in anticipation and celebration of the return of the sun, that great light that makes life livable, and even possible. Even Jesus celebrated the Feast of Dedication (Hanukah) which is a winter feast of light. (John 10:22) And we light candles, and pass light and carry light in anticipation and celebration of the light of Christ that makes life in the darkness possible.

Light is mysterious and amazing, even if we have it in abundance. And the Christmas candles remind us that, in the deep, disorienting, disconcerting and debilitating darkness of our bright world, there shines a light that even that darkness can never extinguish.