When you light a candle, it does not start tall and bright; the flame begins short and dim and then grows.
This has been my experience of people coming back to live worship and programming for the first time in nearly two years; we see some of you every week. There is an awkward tentativeness, an uncertain looking around as they take in sights that are somehow different but they can’t tell what that difference is. They see new faces they know they have never seen, and faces they remember but whose names elude them now. The memories can feel small and dim.
But then they hear a familiar hymn and feel the rush of congregational and choral singing. They recite the Apostle’s Creed and Lord’s Prayer. They hear a word sung or preached that moves them. Then – especially, they see an old friend or someone they just always enjoyed in the pew or around the coffee table and there is an unexpected tear of surging delight around a comforting familiarity that had been forgotten and was now rediscovered. Koinonia is the Greek word – fellowship, but not just any fellowship; rather it is an intuitive knowing that we have something in common not shared with neighbors or colleagues at work or even other friends; it is the bond of faith forged in a community that welcomes, worships, communes, sings, serves, prays, cries, loves – together. And what has felt like a short and dim flame within for so many months, grows tall and bright again.
We light the first Advent candle this Sunday; I hope you will be there and invite someone who needs that same joy in the darkness.
Oh come, oh come Emmanuel,
