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Wednesday 25 December

Christmas Day: The Fifth Candle

By Devin McLachlan

John 1.1-14

 Across the four weeks of Advent, our Advent reflections have lit four candles (insert your own 2 Ronnies’ joke here). One for the matriarchs and patriarchs, as we reflected on their journeys and the long road that led to Christ’s birth. The second for the prophets, as we reflected on how the Spirit helped them to prepare the way of the Lord. The third on the messages of hope that run throughout Scripture, and the fourth on how we respond to God’s call to us, as Mary responded to God’s call.

Today we light the fifth candle, the Christ Candle. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Φῶς τοῦ Θαβώρ, the Light of Tabor, is what Orthodox Christians call that light. It is the bright light that shone out on Mount Tabor at the transfiguration. It is the blinding light that changed Paul forever. This is light that is ‘uncreated’ — not a creature, a making of God’s action, but the very energies and action of God.

Christmas morning is not the time to go down a rabbit-hole of Orthodox theologies, hesychasm, and 14th century synods in Constantinople. But even as we sing about all the ways in which this child born in Bethlehem was both like and unlike any other child in human history, so we might also consider how the Light of Christ — which we will celebrate again at the Great Vigil on the eve of Easter — is like and unlike any other illumination in our life.  

We have electric lights and candlelight and fairy lights; we have moments of enlightenment and realization, blinding ideas and little flashes of inspiration — for some reason, my favourite of those is when my son rigged up a pencil, a clothes peg, and a spool of thread to create a biscuit-dunker for his tea. But the light of Christ both outshines all those, and yet is strangely invisible. Rarely are we blinded as Paul was. Few of us look to follow that light to Bethlehem. More often than not we feel lost in the darkness.

When you are struggling to see that light, look to your neighbour. That has been the great gift of these Advent Reflections, letting the faith of our neighbour inspire our own faith. Because more often than not, the message the Spirit gives us isn’t just meant for us — it is meant for a neighbour, a friend, a stranger who needs to hear it. Far by your baptism, you carry a seed of that Tabor light, and by your baptism you are called to let it shine and make it known, and not to hide it under a bushel. So I hope these reflections have been a source of light for you this Advent, as they have been for me. And I hope your Christmas is full of light!

link to Advent Reflections calendar

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John 1.1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.