When Candles Won't Light....

The church was decorated beautifully for Christmas. Families gathered and music wafted through the pine-scented sanctuary. As we moved through the order of service a family approached the Advent Wreath to light the Candle of Joy.  Try as they might, the Candle of Joy simply would not light. The father took the brass lighter from the mother.  The audience watched and waited. Then the minister took it from the father.  We, the audience, held our breath. Finally, the minister broke our tense expectation with laughter, saying, “Even if the Candle of Joy will not ignite, we can still find joy in our hearts today.”

You could almost hear a sigh of relief. We had been assured we could still feel joy. We could still sing the songs, read the scripture, pray, and worship – without the light of the Joy Candle.

My thoughts remained with the unlit Joy Candle for the remainder of the service. Partly because I am in the Altar Guild, and I know that every detail for a worship service is carefully and lovingly watched over. Baptismal cloths are starched to precision, communion challises are polished—and candles are prepared in advance to make sure they will light.

And I know in our own lives as well we do everything humanly possible for things to run smoothly—and then the unexpected happens. The “candle does not light” and we find ourselves waiting and wondering how it could have happened. We are disappointed things did not go as planned.  We might even become, hurt, angry, or despondent. And we certainly have lost our joy.

But the minister said we could still find joy – even when the candle is not glowing.

Is that true? Even when events in our lives “snuff out” our light and joy, can we still find joy in our hearts? I know the answer to that is “yes.” I know that joy is not dependent on happy events and everything going as we had planned.  I know that joy is more.

In his book, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, Henri Nouwen says that as we break through our need to cling to what we have, what we know, what we possess (all of our carefully lit candles and laid out plans for our lives) we can be liberated by trustful surrender to God. Then our anxiety will not cripple us, but point us forward in JOY, point us even to what we cannot predict or fully see, or understand.

For it is when the candle does not light that we long most for the light to come.  

     And it is in the darkest of nights,

                    when candles won’t light,

                                       we must search and find the light of the stars,

                                                                     And we discover the joy of our longing heart.