Sermonette: Dec. 18, 2023

Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

We continue with our Advent story this week. Let’s take a closer look at the Advent wreath. As I mentioned last week, our wreath has five candles; four on the outside and one in the middle. The outer candles are either purple or blue and many churches have three of those and a fourth one that is pink. There is a center candle that is white and is called the Jesus candle. The four outer ones are Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

The Hope candle is not the word hope we use in everyday conversation. I hope I get a baseball glove for Christmas or I hope we win the basketball game is not the hope this candle represents. The Hope candle represents our faith in God. It would not be correct to say “I hope God exists." The hope we believers refer to here is better defined as a certainty of something not seen. We can say we have our hope in Christ. We haven’t seen him but we believe in him. We believe he was sent here by the Father. Our hope is in our faith of the truth in God’s word.

The Peace candle. Once again, it is easy to put a human meaning to it. In human terms, peace would mean the absence of conflict or a war. Another way to put it could be a lack of violence. These are correct definitions for human circumstances but as we consider the Peace candle we think of a divine meaning. The Peace candle represents an inner peace. A peace that can come over us as we think about how much God loves us. Also, it is a feeling of peace we can get through our faith, knowing that no matter what happens to us here on earth, we have a loving and forgiving God who welcomes us into His kingdom. It is the peace we can take solace in when the world around us in chaos.

The Joy candle. Sometimes this is also called the Mary candle. This candle also represents an inner feeling. In our day to day lives we can feel joy in finding a bargain while shopping. We can feel joy in successfully completing a project. Although the human and divine definitions for this candle are quite close, there is a difference. The human joy is often short lived, maybe for only a minute or two or a couple of days. The joy of this candle, the Mary candle, represents the joy Mary felt when Gabriel told her God had chosen her to be the mother of our Savior. Scripture tells us Mary took this news to her heart. This wasn’t a human feeling only good for a minute type joy.

The last candle we cover this week is the Love candle. And, yes, you guessed it, it does not represent what we normally think when we hear the word love. This isn’t the “boy meets girl–fall in love–get married” type of love. This isn’t the “I love lefse, chocolate chip cookies and the smell of freshly baked bread” type of love. This candle represents a love, a steadfast love. The love that God has for us. A love so true that his son Jesus died so that one day we can join our loving Father in heaven. A love so deep we can’t even approach an understanding of it.

Next week, we finish up the Advent wreath. Blessings to you all.