Advent Four

Today we lit all four advent candles, a complete circle.  At each service we had a family group come up and light the candles together, children and teens and parents taking turns, everyone making sure that everyone else had a chance.

We are getting near to Christmas Eve, but as for me, I somehow wish we could just keep on lighting candles every week, more and more.

Maybe we could make a wider circle, or maybe a long line of candles, lighting another one each week, each one taking a turn, making sure everyone got a chance.

That's one of the things that struck me this year.  In the groups that were lighting candles, they were careful that everyone would get a chance.  It wasn't a small thing.  It was a Big Deal.  A family came to light the candles and asked if their cousin who was visiting could help.  A mother and son asked if a disabled member of the congregation could help.  They wanted to make sure everyone who wanted a turn could take a turn.

There should be more candles, every week.  We should still go on lighting them, until everyone gets a chance.  After all, it is always Advent, in some ways; there are things we never stop waiting for.

At the first service today, when we lit all four candles, we had some trouble.  They were real candles, and the wicks had burned low, and we could not get all of the candles to light.  We tried and tried and tried, until the song was ended and there was this silence while we kept trying to pass the flame to the last two candles.

In the silence the congregation was standing and waiting.  We had finished singing the verse of O Come O Come Emmanuel.  Someone brilliant had lifted of the metal pieces off of the top of the last two candles, so that we could see the wick and light them.  And in the silence I thought that everyone let out a collective breath.

It was all right.  The circle was complete, for today.  Everyone got a chance.

But still we wait.  Even after Christmas, there will be waiting.  There will be waiting for peace.  There will be waiting for love.  There will be waiting for an answer, for healing, for the footsteps of someone coming home.  There will be waiting for your chance, for someone to hand you the fire, so that you can light the candle.

Someday everyone will have a chance.  Everyone will get their turn.  Everyone will be recognized for their created beauty.

In the meantime, make the circle wider, and let us keep lighting candles in the dark.

And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.
Full of grace and truth.

Advent Resources

I don't know when I really started loving advent, but I have had this infatuation for a long time.  Maybe it was those four candles on the advent wreath in church.  Who doesn't like lighting candles? Maybe it was all of the verses of O Come O Come Emmanuel.  Maybe it was the Jesse tree.  We never had one, but I had heard of them, and thought they were fascinating.

Whatever it was, it got stronger when I was in college, and I got more pious.  I loved the idea of observing Advent.  I loved the Incarnation.  You can't just rush headlong into the Incarnation.  You need time.  I liked the idea of keeping Christmas at bay, simmering for 24 days or so, until it was ready, really ready.

Despite my love for Advent, though, I have not really been that successful at keeping it.  Although we have an advent wreath, I have not necessarily used it regularly.  I am spectacularly undisciplined, although I have high ideals, and therefore (having high ideals), I have had many many different kinds of advent disciplines and devotionals.  I have had many devotionals which I have mostly left unfinished or become bored with.  After awhile, I can't read the daily snippets any more.

Still, people ask me what I recommend.  Here is what I'll say:

These days my only go-to advent devotional (if you can call it that) is Christmastide, Phyllis Tickle's book of prayers for the Daily Hours.  I think I like it because it doesn't have that daily snippet that most devotional books do.  It just has scripture readings and prayers for different hours of the day.  I am not any more disciplined at doing all of the prayers at all of the hours, but I might hit one or two every day.

One year I used a book of daily essays called Watch for the Light.  I would recommend that one.  The essays are all by different people, with very different pieties and theological backgrounds.  Baptists, Catholics, Mennonites, writers from this century and the 4th century all have a voice.

I find Sybil MacBeth's new book The Season of the Nativity a little too basic in some ways, but very creative in other ways.   I am all for coloring as an Advent discipline.

I think Advent was made for art, so I also recommend Jan Richardson's book Night Visions.

I recommend reading children's books in Advent.  Right now, the one I am in love with is called The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, by Gloria Houston, and illustrated by Barbara Cooney.  It is set in Appalachia in 1918.  That is all I am going to say about it.

Other than that, here's what I am going to do during Advent this year:

1.  I am going to light candles.  I might be organized enough to get the wreath out, or I might not, but I will light candles.  I will try to light candles in different colors, at different times, and at different places.
2.  I will take walks in the dark with my dog.  I will think about the dark, and be glad that I have my dog with me.  I will look at the dark, I will notice it.  I will bundle up against the cold.
3.  I will be silent, sometimes.  When I am silent, I will try to remember that the silence is a space for someone else's wisdom, someone else's voice.  I will try to learn from people who are not me.
4.  I will speak, sometimes.  I will try to say things that are hard.  I will remember that the things I say can be short, only a few words.  It is advent, after all.
5.  I will read Luke chapter 1, and Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1.  Those will be my devotional readings this year.

I might get an advent calendar.  I will let you know.

Pentecost: Being There

Sunday was the third of the three great festivals of the church.  And if you were on church on Sunday, you would have seen, heard, and perhaps felt many festive things.  We had new, flame-colored paraments and a streamer with orange and red crepe paper flew above our heads during the opening notes of the prelude.  We had fans blowing on the flame-colored paraments, and perhaps some of us could even  feel the wind of the Spirit.  We had a wonderful processional with the cross and the candles.  We had many candles lit, and the Paschal (Easter) candle for the last time.

The bells played at the beginning of the worship service.  Afterwards the people clapped.  Our contemporary choir, The Spirit Singers, sang during the offering, a jazzy, bluesy song.  The children received crayons as a reminder  that they are creative people, that they have received the creative spirit of God, and that when they are create something, that is an act of the Spirit.

Before the church service, we had put out two large bins of small candles, the ones we used on Christmas eve, and also at the Easter Vigil.  We instructed the people to give each person a candle when they entered.  One of the ushers asked, "What should I say about the candles?  People are asking about them…"  I answered, "Just say it has something to do with the sermon, and it's a surprise."

The other pastor said something similar in the announcements.

Then, at the sermon, I took a small candle in my hand while I spoke.  I began by pointing out the Easter candle, the Paschal candle, which stands in the middle of our sanctuary, right behind the baptismal font.  We have been lighting every Sunday since Easter, but after Pentecost, we will not light it again for a long time, not unless there is a baptism.  There is something sad about this to me, at least sometimes.  I love the light and the dancing fire.  Why don't we just keep lighting that candle every week?  If it has to do with Jesus' resurrection, and Jesus is still risen, why not keep lighting it?

We had read the story from Numbers about Moses and the 70 elders who got a share of Moses' spirit, so I did a little backstory on that.  When I got to the part about the elders prophesying, just once, I lit my own candle from the Paschal candle.  When I got to the part about the Spirit spilling over onto Eldad and Medad, I lit two other candles in the congregation.

Then I spoke a bit about what it means to be prophets, how God wants all of us to be prophets, but do we think of ourselves that way?  Child of God, yes (and I lit a candle).  Image of God?  I hope so.  (and I lit a candle.)  But we don't think of ourselves as prophets.

But God wishes all of God's people would be prophets, which has something to do with carrying this candle, something to do with bearing the Spirit.  As I imagined the role of the prophet in bringing light into darkness, life into death, hope into despair, I continued to light the candles of people in the congregation.

I spent some time with the Pentecost story, the disciples gathered, the people from all the earth gathered, the Spirit spilling out.  Suddenly it was not just one person testifying, but they were all testifying, not just one person with the Spirit, but all of the sharing the Spirit.  Not just one person carrying the light, but they all held the light.

That's what Pentecost was.  The dreams of God becoming the dreams of the disciples.  The visions of God becoming the visions of the disciples.

So after Pentecost, the light of the large candle is extinguished.  You know why?  Here's why:  because from now on, the light is in us.  The spirit is in us.

The light is in you.

That's what I said, more or less.  Afterwards we sang "This little light of mine" and extinguished our candles, although I hope some lights still shine.

After church, one woman whispered to me that while I was lighting candles, people were just spontaneously sharing their light with one another, even though I had never said they could do that.  She thought that was a good sign.  I also saw a mom and dad, carrying small lighted candles out of the sanctuary.  When I wondered, they said they were taking them to their children, who had been in Sunday School.

As I consider the day, our Pentecost at church, I realize there were a couple of things I forgot to say, things I wish I had said.  There were few lines that I left out, things I only thought of afterwards.  I wish I had said something about the Paschal candle and the visible presence of Jesus, his resurrection appearances, how he stopped appearing to his disciples, and how now WE are the resurrection appearances of Jesus.

I also consider how I want to remember the day, not just my part in in, but the whole thing.  But how hard it is to hold on to it, like trying Mary trying to hold onto Jesus after his resurrection.  I want to preserve the memory of something good (I think) that happened -- the colors on the cloth, the wind, the tiny lights, the looks on people's faces when they held the light.  Like the wind of the Spirit itself, experience is powerful but ephemeral.

The experience of Pentecost is powerful but ephemeral.  But the important thing to know, when your memory of the day is faded, when you can't feel the wind any more, or see the tongue of flame, the important thing to know is this:

The light is in you now.  It doesn't belong to you.  But it is in you.  All of you.