A Road Less Travelled

This year our Chanukah falls smack dab on the regualr Chanukah. For Night 0 ( The Night of Evil) we turned off all the lights and sat in darkness while Seth talked about the darkness of the world. Jesus came as the Light of the World to heal our darkness. The big candle is to remember that Jesus came to bring light into darkness.

The first small candle is to remember that we went to the Samaritan Christmas party on Friday.

The second candle is to remember that Jesus has come to slay our dragons. The kids liked that one. Jesus the Dragon Slayer storming down out of Heaven to avenge His people.

The third small candle is to remember that Jesus came to cry with us. He stood outside His friend’s tomb and He cried. Jesus understands. He has experienced everything we struggle with except without sin. We can never say Jesus doesn’t understand what we’re dealing with. We can never say He can’t help because He hasn’t gone through it before. We say to Jesus we’re struggling with something and He says He’s done it before and He totally understands.

Tonight we lit the fourth candle and remembered that Jesus has come to give to us so that we can be generous. Recently in a post mostly about something else Seth talked about scarcity. There’s never enough time, kielbasa, money, energy, clarity of thought to go around and we feel the pinch in all sorts of different ways. And with the pinch comes the temptation to envy. But Christ has come to bring us Himself and so we lack nothing. We can be generous and we can withstand envy because we have Him and so we need nothing else.

We lit the fifth candle and talked about our hearts. The very center of who we are. In times past our hearts were hard,cold and they weighed us down. We couldn’t feel with these hearts, we couldn’t love, they didn’t work right. And these hearts hated God. But Jesus has come to give us new hearts. Our hearts of stone were removed and we were given new hearts of flesh. Now we have hearts that can love, hope, feel. We have hearts that can love God and wish to serve Him. We have new hearts that can learn. The very center of us has been radically changed. And that is why Jesus has come.

Candle number six we haven’t lit yet. We were at the Lansberry house for dinner.

Seth lit candle number seven and reminded us of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to bring us the Holy Spirit so He could, among other things, connect us to other people. Connect us as families and friends, as churches and communities. If Jesus had not come and given us the Holy Spirit we would be very lonely people.

Tonight we lit the eighth and final candle and remembered that Jesus came to be our king. Our king who comes and conquers this world and brings us peace.

Happy Chanukah, everyone! May this coming year be full of light and life as we live to serve the Light of the world.