My Least Favorite Thing about Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Candlelight Services truly are phenomenal.

There’s that moment when the overhead lights are turned off and the light from the Christ Candle has been passed to the ushers and then to everyone present and then light is coming from what’s held by everyone.

THAT is a breathtaking, breathless moment.

But then it’s time to come down from the mountaintop.

The candles everyone’s holding are all blown out. That’s my least favorite thing about Christmas Eve.

The overhead lights come back on.

The moment’s gone.

There’s an old hymn that says,

I’d stay in the garden with Him,

Though the night around me be falling!

But He bids me go:

Through the voice of woe,

His voice to me is calling.

And we start talking, wishing each other Merry Christmas and noticing how much that other person’s changed since we saw them the last time, and…

And He walks with me

And He talks with me

…and the moments that follow are the moments for which that previous one prepared us.

And suddenly I remember that my least favorite part of the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service has become my most favorite part: a call to action, a sending forth to not just hold the light of a candle, but for all of us to be and share the light of Christ.