Strike a Light

One of the many familiar symbols of Christmas that are not exclusively Christian is the lighted candle.  Alongside the snow scenes, the crinolined ladies, the robins and the santas, it adorns many of the cards that will shortly be dropping through our letterbox.  Maybe you've already bought the ones you'll be sending, and many of them will have candles in their design.  What can the lowly candle tell us?

 

There used to be an expression, a euphemism for the act of dying, that is less common nowadays: ‘snuffing it’.  This was indeed a very accurate term, for as the body dies, it's as if the light of human life is being ‘snuffed out’, like the flame of a candle.  So the candle flame represents life.

 

The flame itself is in two parts.  Outside is the part we see, the bright light that illuminates the space around it; in the centre is the dark part where the action takes place.  This is the hottest part, and melts the wax of the candle, turning it into a vapour ready to be burned.  As it burns, the vapour gives us the light we value so much.  Our analogy continues, for life is like that, isn't it?  It has a controlled inner part, known only to ourselves, and a bright outer part that is seen by everyone, and able to affect others.

 

Effort is required to convert the fuel available – whether it’s food for our bodies or knowledge for our intellect – into a form that can nourish us.  If we don’t do this, then life will be very limited, in terms of either time or intensity, or both.  But lives that are nourished in this way provide rich rewards.  According to the King James Version of our Bibles, Jesus referred to a candle in just this way (Matthew 5:15-16).  A life that is constantly fed with physical or spiritual nourishment, or both, is a source of strength, enlightenment and enrichment to others around it.

 

I'm sure Christmas won't pass without your seeing a candle somewhere, whether on a card, in a picture, or in real life: perhaps in church.  If you light a candle this Christmas, take a moment to study it closely, and reflect just how closely it mirrors the truths of life itself, a life that was shared for just a short time by God's own Son.

The Parable at the Chemist's

Life can be tiresome at times, not least when you're in a hurry.  You’ve probably suffered the same frustration that I experienced recently when I tried to buy some cough medicine.  The assistant was about to take my money when she suddenly realised,  “I’m sorry – I can’t sell this to you at the moment – the pharmacist’s just popped out.”

 

Sometimes in church - or in other places, too, I suppose - we use an expression of completeness, 'body, mind and spirit.'  It may seem perverse, therefore, to break this down into its constituent parts.  As I waited for the return of the medical professional whose absence was holding me up, I had the chance to reflect on the strange quirk of the Medicines Act that requires not that the pharmacist should make the sale (body), nor even that he should see the sale take place (mind), but simply that he should be on the premises at the time (spirit).

 

I decided that the powers that the Act confers on the pharmacist can teach us something about sin.  Just as the authority of the pharmacist pervades his whole emporium, so sin influences all of our being.  There are, of course, those obvious sins that we commit with our own bodies, which we can compare to the idea of the pharmacist selling the product over the counter himself.  But how often do we consider as our own sins those times when we see someone else doing wrong and take no action to prevent or report it - comparable to the proprietorial oversight of the sale taking place?  And which of us can claim that we’ve never been present in a building, or been part of an organisation, or a citizen of a country where sin takes place somewhere, even if we don't actually see it?

 

Now, we are told that the sinner who repents is assured of being forgiven (e.g. in James 5:15), and we are taught that true repentance involves a change of habit or lifestyle.  But here's a greater challenge.  Is there some way in which we can contribute to repentance at a higher level – perhaps by boldly offering a choice word at the right time (Matthew 10:19-20)?

Who Moved?

In the course of my family history research I’ve followed one line after another through the years of the Great War, imagining young men who, in their thousands, forsook horse and plough at the call of the recruiting office; young men whose loyalty was stirred and enthusiasm aroused, only to be so quickly and completely overturned by the mess, the destruction and the sheer horror of the Western Front.  It was so terrible that, right into old age and sometimes to the point of death, many would not talk of their experiences.  For those involved, whether in battle or at home, it was a time of immense and irreversible change.  Life was never the same again: it was indeed a Great event.

It’s easy to say that the war was started by the assassination of the Austrian heir, the archduke Franz Ferdinand.  But there was already widespread discontent across Europe, from Ulster to the Balkans, results of class difference, oppression, nationalism, and so on.  Alongside this were rivalries over the ‘new lands’ of Africa, over-ripe for colonial exploitation.   Once the spark had been kindled, war was inevitable.

A recent radio programme touched on the problems encountered by western armies who find themselves operational in the Moslem world.  The presenter spoke of a failure to appreciate the extent to which politics are [still] inseparable from religion in those lands, and said that the same was true of this country several centuries ago, “but we have moved on.”  His tone implied progress, but I’m not so sure.

Consider the causes of war, action and reaction; if these are out of proportion, war can be the result.  Whether it was the Unionist reaction to the passing of the Home Rule Bill, or the supressed aspirations of the various nation-groups of central Europe, actions and reactions could have been different, more generous, less selfish; there could have been less insistence on an eye for an eye (Ex. 21:24), more turning of the other cheek (Mt. 5:38-39.)  How far so-called Christian Europe had ‘progressed’ from the backward and Biblical ways of earlier centuries!

And, almost a century later, are we at last enjoying some benefit from that ‘War to end Wars’?  Dissatisfaction, resentment and misrepresentation still abound, and have been joined by other ills.  That radio presenter said, “it used to be like that here”, i.e. we used to live close to God, with respect for Him and His creation, with a fear of judgement, and a realistic expectation that the sinful would be damned.  No one has seen or heard a pronouncement from Heaven during those intervening centuries, relaxing God’s commands, reducing His expectations of mankind.  Such a pronouncement would have overturned those words written to the Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever” (Heb. 13:8), and re-written our Bibles in many ways.

“If you’re not close to God, guess who moved,” invited a famous poster.  Perhaps it’s time we moved back!