Most
Christian congregations celebrate the eve of Christmas with some sort of candlelight
service. Worshipers receive a small white candle inserted into a clear plastic
cup, plastic holder, or paper ring to catch dripping wax. At some point during
the liturgy, all the candles are lit, the lights dimmed or turned off, and all
sing Silent Night or some other
Christmas carol by candlelight as they recall and celebrate the incarnation of
the Light of the World. When well-crafted and executed, the Christmas Eve
Candlelight Service can be the most memorable and cherished worship service of
the whole year, eliciting both tears and smiles for those who attend.
When I was
much younger, say around nine or ten years old or maybe a little older, I
looked forward to attending the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service not only for
its message of joy and peace but also for the candle. I always brought the
candle from the service home with me and used it the rest of the winter to wax
the runners of my sled.
With a
fresh coat of wax on my hand-me-down sled’s old, rusty runners I could race down
neighborhood hills faster than you could say Jack Frost. I would sometimes
swish and swoosh down slopes in a serpentine pattern. Other times I would just
make a beeline straight down the grade, trying to see how fast and how far I
could go.
One winter
my waxed runners and cold, slick snow combined to enable me to sled so fast and
far that I slid right off a three or four foot high stone wall holding back the
hillside I had just sped down, and I landed on the concrete sidewalk below. I
survived that adventure without a scratch, but my hand-me-down sled did not. The
runners were bent and the wood cracked. Soon afterward I was the proud owner or
a newer and even larger sled, not a Western Flyer but a Western Clipper!
I still
have that Western Clipper, though it is no longer new, and it has been years
since anyone has used it. I also still bring home the candle from the Christmas
Eve Candlelight Service, not to wax the runners of that old sled, but to remind
me throughout the year that faith and trust in the incarnation of the Light of
the World can help me negotiate the twists and turns of life, even when I find
myself where I never expected to be.
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