{"id":8458,"date":"2003-12-12T22:38:08","date_gmt":"2003-12-13T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=8458"},"modified":"2011-07-06T08:28:11","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T13:28:11","slug":"3397","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2003\/12\/12\/3397\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent Devotion: Candles Remind Us of Christ’s Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO, IL (December 12, 2003)\u00a0 – Covenant Communications is publishing\u00a0 several Advent devotionals from church newsletters this month. Here is\u00a0 one written by Herbert Hedstrom, pastor of the Evangelical Covenant\u00a0 Church of Elgin, Illinois.<\/em><\/p>\n

While we were cleaning out the house after my father died, we discovered\u00a0 in the basement a box full of the clip-on candleholders that long ago\u00a0 had been used in my mother’s childhood home to light the Christmas tree.\u00a0 Mom had told us of the ritual surrounding those candles: tip toeing into\u00a0 the dark parlor after Christmas Eve dinner and watching her father\u00a0 slowly and carefully light the candles until the room was bathed in their flickering light. Electric tree lights are certainly safer and\u00a0 more convenient, and probably brighter. But I still feel that I’ve\u00a0 missed something wonderful, not seeing those beautiful candles on\u00a0 Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
Christmas candles are a symbol of what the Evangelist John tells us:\u00a0 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome\u00a0 it.” The baby Jesus could easily have been snuffed out by Herod the\u00a0 Great. The adult Jesus was snuffed out with the approval of Herod’s son.\u00a0 In a world full of dark, shadowy and dangerous powers, the message of light and hope symbolized by those flickering candles on my mother’s\u00a0 childhood Christmas tree seems so small, so dim. The message of\u00a0 Christmas is easily eclipsed by our annual consumerist orgy and by the\u00a0 harsh news from Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
And yet the light still shines. The light that truly brings hope and joy\u00a0 does not come from the shining stars of the entertainment industry nor\u00a0 from exploding ordinance. Instead, what was true when Paul wrote it\u00a0 nearly 2,000 years ago is still true: “God chose what is foolish in the\u00a0 world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that\u00a0 are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might\u00a0 boast in the presence of God.”<\/p>\n
Grace and Peace.<\/p>\n
To read devotionals posted earlier, visit the following:<\/p>\n