All the Pretty Lights: The Light of Hope
Luke 2: 1 – 5
You just can’t do Christmas without lights! They’re my favorite Christmas tradition. There’s much I find about Christmas challenging—not the holiday itself, but all the surrounding ado. I’d just as soon we skip most of the Christmas season, but the one thing I don’t want to skip is all the pretty lights. When our children were small, we’d load up on a chilly December evening and make our way to Tupaw subdivision in West Monroe to look at the houses that had been brilliantly decorated with lights and seasonal characters, and then we’d make our way to the northside of Monroe for a trip down Christmas Card Lane. I’m a little disappointed that both those traditions don’t exist anymore, but I still enjoy riding around and looking at all the pretty lights put up at Christmas. Of course, one can’t think about Christmas lights without thinking of Clark W. Griswold in Christmas Vacation. I’d have more lights on my house if I weren’t so much like Clark. Though, Clark is a much better man than I. He persevered and overcame. Me, not so much. Drive by my house and you’re likely to see only a few strands of lights, while though I like to see them, I’m either too lazy, too impatient, or just too cheap to do an elaborate display. But still, I love all the pretty lights.
Where does this tradition of lights at Christmas come from? The History of Christmas says that the tradition of lighting the darkness goes back to the Yule, a midwinter festival celebrated by Norsemen. The festival boasted nights of feasting, drinking Yule, the Norse god Odin’s sacrificial beer, and watching the fire leap around the Yule log burning in the home hearth.
The lighting of the Yule log spread throughout Europe. Many believed the log’s flame summoned the sun’s return and drove away evil spirits. Over time Christianity adopted these Norse traditions, and the light from the Yule log came to represent Jesus as Light in the darkness.
Eventually, people set candles in their windows on long winter nights to welcome weary travelers. For Christians, the candles in the windows became a symbol to welcome Mary and Joseph after their long trek to Bethlehem.
Candles were the first Christmas lights, whether you consider the candles in the windows of homes that welcomed the weary stranger, or the candles that Martin Luther is said to have attached to his Christmas tree. Walking home one night Luther was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling through the evergreens he passed. To share with his family he erected a tree in his home and wired the branches with lit candles. Soon a star was affixed to the top to represent the star in the east that shone on the manger where the baby Jesus lay.
Well, there aren’t any candles on our trees. They’ve long since been replaced with electric lights (we’ll talk more about those in weeks to come), but we still light candles, and they hold significance for us as they adorn our Advent wreath, and we light one each week to reflect the nature and character of Jesus Christ who, represented by the center “Christ” candle, is the Light of the World. The Advent wreath is shaped in a perfect circle to symbolize the eternity of God. The four virtues of Jesus represented are hope, love, joy and peace.
The Advent wreath is another tradition co-opted by we Christians from pagans who used wreathes with lit candles during cold and dark December days as a sign of hope in the future warm and extended-sunlight days of spring. In Scandinavia during winter, lighted candles were placed around a wheel, and prayers were offered to the god of light to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days and restore warmth. It was Martin Luther who popularized the Advent wreath when he began to use it as Christian education tool, and the way we have it today pretty much comes from the early Lutheran family tradition. Though popular in homes, the Advent wreath didn’t find much popularity in churches until the mid-1950’s.
I’ve given you a lot of history, perhaps too much, but I hope I’ve laid a foundation, not only for today, but for the weeks ahead as we look at all the pretty lights symbolized by this wreath that sits in front of us. We begin today with the first candle—the light of hope.
The first thing we need to do is get an understanding of hope. Hope is one of those words in the English language that gets overused: “I hope the rain holds off.” “I hope I get the day after Christmas off.” “I hope the Saints can win the Super Bowl this year.” In this regard, hope is about something we want or don’t want to happen. The New Testament is a bit different, though. There are two words used by the NT authors. One has to do with trust, usually in a person, and the second, most often used has to do with expectation, anticipation and confidence. As a matter of fact, a more clear understanding of hope would be “a confident expectation.” Well, I’m sorry, I hope the Saints win the Super Bowl this year, but I do not have a confident expectation that it will occur. Hear the difference? I’m not living in anticipation of its occurrence.
Another illustration that comes to my mind during Advent is a child on Christmas Eve. The child may ‘hope’ that his/her parents remembered that he/she wanted that certain toy for Christmas. The child doesn’t know for a certainty that he/she will get it, but he/she hopes so.
On the other hand, the child has another hope that is more certain. It is the expectation of Christmas morning; when he will come stumbling from his room, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and see in the morning light, packages under the tree that he hasn’t seen there before; and knowing some of them are for him. He is so excited about the coming of Christmas morning that he may have difficulty falling asleep. But it is not anxiety that keeps him awake; it is anticipation, because he knows the day will be there soon. This is the hope represented by the first candle. This candle does not represent a yearning for an uncertain thing, but a confident anticipation and expectation of something that will indeed come.
So, what do we hope for this Advent Season? What are we certain is coming? Again, let’s go back to the New Testament, and more particularly, the first century. I chose Luke’s gospel account for today’s reading because of three words—“At that time…” That which these first century Hebrews had been hoping for was now about to come. Their confident expectation was about to see reality. What am I talking about? The birth of Messiah—the birth of Jesus Christ.
Generations in Israel had God’s promise concerning the coming of Messiah. Generations had longed for, and prayed for, and waited for His revelation. In prophesying of the Messiah’s arrival on the scene, Isaiah said, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light” (9:2)
In Zacharias’ song of praise, recorded in Luke 1, he expressed the hope of his people by contrasting what Messiah’s coming would mean with the things that the hope would replace—salvation over enemies, forgiveness over the guilt of sin, and most importantly, light over darkness.
“At that time” it could almost seem like a myth because their fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers before them had heard the same promises over and over again. Hardly more than a legend; a fantasy that one clings to in the worst of times; yet still, something believed, something expected, and this had to be the real thing. The great hope of Israel had come to drive away the pain and the fear and the oppression and the darkness, and guide Israel’s feet into the way of peace. Jesus has come. Hope fulfilled.
Yet, we light this candle as a symbol of Christ our hope. We have been blessed with the knowledge that Jesus has already come and paid for our sins with his life. We are blessed with the knowledge that scripture has been fulfilled with the prophecies of old. We have the comfort that hope has been fulfilled, but hope is still to be fulfilled in the future. Here in this Advent season, it comes down to this. We are here to celebrate the hope of a new life. We light this candle as a symbol that Christ, who is our hope, can transform the brokenness around us, or the brokenness within us. We light this candle as a symbol of Christ who gives us the hope of a life delivered from pain and suffering, and instead full of praise, celebration and joy. We light this candle as a symbol of our hope in the coming again of Christ, because without Him, there is no hope.
It’s been over 2,000 years since the coming of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul and the early church lived with the confident expectation of Christ’s soon return, and ever since generations have lived expectantly, some even looking for the splitting of the eastern sky, fully anticipating his return. It can seem as if it’s all just a myth, much like the first century Hebrews. Why is he taking so long? What exactly, are we supposed to do? There’s one answer: Live faithfully. That’s what Mary and Joseph were doing. That’s what Zachariah and Elizabeth were doing when John’s birth was announced. Hey? That’s even what the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem were doing when Christ came. They were doing what they knew to do.
Remember Y2K? Some, including many Christians, prepared for the end of the millennium by building underground living quarters. Others stored food, water, and supplies in their homes. Many purchased protection for their computers. A few spent their money on a huge party expecting no tomorrow. Some thought it was going to be the end of the world. People were getting ready because they were expecting something to happen. We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, ought to live as expectantly in anticipation of Christ’s return.
As long as this candle burns, to live expectantly is to live faithfully, doing those things that should be done, that have to be done, that need to be done. What needs to be done? That’s easy. First, live evangelistically—live a life that tells the story of Christmas and the cross every day. Live to tells others the hope that can be found in Jesus Christ. Next, worship regularly—join with other believers to proclaim as the body of Christ that Christ is alive, and present and worthy of praise. Even the act of worship is a testimony to the power of Christmas, and it, too is a way we live evangelistically. Then, we study devotionally—living faithfully is living a life of prayer and devotion. We also serve faithfully—we offer ourselves in service to the body of Christ and to the world. There’s no better time to serve than during Advent, but Advent isn’t the only time to serve. There are hurting people in need of grace, and when we give ourselves in service, they hear a whisper of the Gospel, and we catch a glimmer of the light that came into the world. Finally, we give generously—and let me affirm, you have done that. We received pledges on November 16th, and after some late pledges have come in, your generosity and commitment to ministry in mission at FUMC, Monroe fell less than $8,000 short of $1 million. If anyone wants to make that final $8,000 pledge to put us over the $1 million mark, that would be a milestone for this congregation. These are the things we do to live expectantly.
Paul Quinnett, in his book Pavlov’s Trout, catches the essence. He says:
It is better to fish hopefully than to catch fish.
Fishing is hope experienced. To be optimistic in a slow bite is to thrive on hope alone. When asked, “How can you fish all day without a hit? the true fisherman replies, “Hold it! I think I felt something.” If the line goes slack, he says, “He’ll be back!”
We light this candle because we have hope. Without hope, there is no yearning, no desire for a better tomorrow, and no belief that life matters. Christmas is proof that life matters, and in life, Christ is our hope.
