This past week I found myself thinking about birthday candles.
The kind we stuff into fudgy chocolate cakes.
The ones with delicate flames dancing upon their small stature.
As my mind glanced back to celebrations of the past, the ones where families and friends gather around, as a cake aglow with tiny birthday candles is tenderly carried to the table, I thought of hands cupped around the fragile dancing flame.
Suspense and wonder saturating the air.
Everyone on bated breath.
Attentive to make sure not to accidentally extinguish its light.
And I wondered if there are moments in life when we feel like those tiny, delicate flames.
When our faith feels fragile and small.
Like we're filled with more questions and doubts than understanding.
When our faith feels filled with more unknowing than knowing.
Like a birthday candle flame within us.
Perhaps beginning to wonder what it means to live into God's call for us to "let our light so shine". For how is one to do this, when the flame inside feels so delicate, so small?
And perhaps that's where we, the body of Christ, come in.
Because as I thought about the small, delicate, birthday candle flame of faith, I also thought about a tradition that happens in many of our churches on Christmas Eve, and that is the passing of the flame.
Where one by one we share the fragile, powerful, flicker of light.
One by one we hold the flame with one another.
One by one we begin to see the small flame we hold dancing with another...
and another...
and another...
One by one we are reminded that we do not shine alone.
And what a holy and powerful sight to behold.
As the light from each single small candle intertwines with another.
Saturating the space.
The Holy Spirit spreading.
Grace aglow.
A reminder that the Spirits love and power is the flame within.
And even, and especially, in those times when it feels small, fragile, delicate, and yearning to be reminded of the power it holds, we as the body of Christ hold onto it with one another.
So let us hold the light with one another, Dear Friends.
And let us shine together the love and transforming power of the Spirit.
For that small, tender flame within us can never be extinguished, and when we hold the flame together it illumines the world.
