Lighten Up

Guest entry

From Christmas tree twinkles to front lawn phantasmagorical displays, we all seem to enjoy adding lights to our holiday celebrations. Not only Christians celebrate this time with radiance, Hanukkah is also a time of lights and candles as are Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice. These are cold, dark times with short days and the glow of light pushes back the night.

Personally, I am a candle-holic. My husband jokes that I will burn down the house one day with my well-scented pyromania. In fact, one year, our Advent candles managed to set the dining room table on fire. It was a close call, but I confess, I didn’t learn my lesson. I am still fascinated by the power of a single candle to light a room, to change a mood, to whisper the mysteries of the flame.

For the Christian believer, the most significant light is God, that great Light, the complete energy, the embodiment of light in which there is no darkness at all [I John 1:15]. And from this all-consuming light came a flare, a spark, if you will, in the form of a child, the anointed One, the Christ. And then, like dominoes falling, that illumination passed from one person to another throughout the centuries and into today.

For me, each light then is a symbolic representation of that moment in time, that gift from God to Human. And although, as a Christ follower, I have a particular way of experiencing that light, it is available to each and every one of us to pass the flame of love. 

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a beautiful story about The Little Match Girl who, for lack of anything, had a few matches to light her world with hope. But for want of a human soul, a human “match” to warm her, to protect her, to save her, she walked into the great Light.

I charge you, this season, to be a light to someone in need. And as you attend one of many “candlelight” services this year in your community, see more clearly the symbolism of passing the tiny blaze from one to another for what it really is, to be someone’s candle, someone’s warmth, someone’s spark.

is having its on Tuesday, December 20 at 7 p.m. at the Good Cause Foundation building, 616 Ontario Street in Havre de Grace. Come and lighten up your heart. All are welcome.

Irmgarde Brown for Restore Church