Light of the World

Tonight was one of my favorite College Life services, the candlelight one. And then this morning at church they also had a candlelight service. I always get choked up and candle light services, I usually think it's because I'm home for Christmas and I'm just emotional. But this year I've have felt different about advent and these services today helped me make some sense of it I think. I have always loved advent, I like the anticipation that builds when we light candles one by one and wait for Christmas day and ultimately wait for the coming of Christ. There has always been something inside of me that just loved that feeling but this year I think I'm starting to understand that I don't fully get what Christ's birth means to the world. I wait for Christmas because it is such a joyful time for me to be home and such. But I'm realizing that our world longs for Christmas because they long for Christ, they long for Hope.

In a staff mtg that I was in last week we all reflected on the line from O Little town of Bethlehem that say "The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in they tonight". Do I really get what it means for all of my hopes and all of my fears to be met in Christ? I can honestly say that I have never felt completely hopeless but I am aware of many people around me who are hopeless and who need to anticipate the birth of Christ.

Another line that has been in my head this week is from O Holy Night and says " Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the souls felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn." There are people everywhere who are weary in the depth of their souls, not just a weariness that a week on the beach would cure. But a weariness that only Christ can break into. I think that I just feel overwhelmed by all of the hopeless and weary things that I know of in people's lives today but in the midst of that I can't help but feel the weight of what it means that the light of Christ broke into a dark world. This Christmas is no different, we still desperately need the light of Christ to break into situations and people.

So I think I'm starting to get it, I think I understand why something in me is always stirred by the visual sight of a congregation lighting each others candles and singing "Light of the world, Light of the world, Light of the world you shine upon us..."