December 25, 2007

Christmas Eve 07, 7:00 p.m.

WHY WE LIGHT CANDLES

In County Meath, Ireland, not far from Tara, ancient home of the legendary Irish kings, in the valley of the Boyne River, there's a mound of stones and earth called Newgrange. No one knows how long it has been there. It dates back before the time of those old kings, back before the Druids, back into the mists of prehistory. [1]

When I read of this, what caught my attention, since I'm not Irish and I'm unimpressed with the significance of the name Tara (Scarlett O'Hara's home in Gone With the Wind)... Well, I had never heard of this place, Newgrange, never been there, but I've been to Stonehenge and so have some of you... marveled at those great monoliths placed so accurately as to precisely mark the movements of the sun on each solstice and equinox.

You see, Newgrange, like Stonehenge, is a scientific instrument... dare I say, also a theological instrument. At Newgrange there's a narrow opening and then a passage, 68 feet long, into a central chamber, a place of burial. In the center of the chamber, turn and look back and I guess it's "like looking through the sights of a rifle, so focused it is right on the opening. On the day of the winter solstice, and on that day only, the sun will rise over the horizon directly in line with the entrance, and light will pour down that passage and fill the chamber with the radiance of its rising."

I called these ancient monuments instruments of science and theology. The two disciplines, these often competing lines of inquiry, they are not that far off from one another, really, probing mysteries, posing answers, seeking truth. If nothing else, Stonehenge and Newgrange could serve to keep us humble, we, so modern and advanced. Without our tools and technology, how those "primitive" people could mark, move, and assemble with such precision. And how without our intellectual tools, they understood and responded to their place before the Creator.

Are they so different from us? Newgrange, Stonehenge, those many other lesser-known stone circles elsewhere in the world - all aimed at the heavens, acknowledging relationships with that which is beyond us, seeking hope in a world which we rely upon because it is our only home, yet it is a world that changes daily.

From the beginning the human race has longed to know that the world (which we depend upon for our very lives) that it's reliable, that the power which controls the universe can be trusted, that such power is on our side and concerned about us. The only way those ancient people had of knowing that God is faithful and true was to test the faithfulness and reliability of nature. [2] And they discovered that it is - and therefore nature's Designer and Creator is, too. Now think of that winter light at Newgrange plunging hope deep into a place of death.

We're a long way from stone monuments and we do know something more than they did. The Designer and Creator of physics and engineering is God, revealed in person and in relationships. That is the story of the life of Jesus, and the effect of it on us, the evidence of his Holy Spirit even in the darkness.

John Bucka of New Hope, Minnesota, is the friend and former pastor of our director of music Melanie Hanson, and I know John, too - a non-smoking pastor with six kids in his 50s suddenly diagnosed this fall with advanced lung cancer. With his permission here's an entry from his blog on CaringBridge.org:

"I received another lesson in grace yesterday. One of the most difficult things I'm starting to deal with is the change in my workload. I'm the guy who would work fifty hours a week. I'd come in when I had a cold or didn't feel well. It was who I am.

"Now we're talking about working five hours a day - or less. You can imagine what that does to someone's self-esteem and sense of worth. It's one thing to preach about grace; it's another thing to receive it.

"Last night I met with my nurse and she pointed that out. She named it; I claimed it. I thank God for the grace that is given freely and doesn't depend upon how many hours I work or how useful I feel. Grace is part of our DNA. Let it work and enjoy it." [3]

"Grace is part of our DNA." So is our humanity - and our misapprehension that the world depends on us instead of the other way around. Our search for God is also built into us. The laws of nature, the laws of human nature, too, the gospel of Jesus Christ are all genetic marks of the Creator's finger, and somehow we sense that. Christmas and the story which Christmas sets in motion tell of that grace incarnate in one individual with worldwide and personal effect.

We are rooted in the earth but we are planted in the heavens. We look to the sky, always have. And that is why nothing created or that we create, and nothing intellectual, earth-bound or tangible - nothing less than the sky is ever really going to satisfy us. We will be always attracted to what is up there, will explore it, dream of it. But then we'll get restless once again and begin to look around down here for something else.

At Christmastime we are generally more aware of that restlessness and inner conflict than at any other time. That's why people stream to churches, this time of year, at the winter solstice, when even astronomy points out the darkness and things even in nature begin to change. The earth turns faithfully on its axis every year, and dependably the sun begins to rise again.

We cannot see this turning of the earth, but even ancients had a sense of it and so do we. There are no gears shifting that we could inspect. We do not order it, nor can we control it. It is imbedded in creation's DNA; it is the Creator's gift of dependability. It means new life is coming. The earth is not going to die; it is going to be resurrected into spring. And it is personal. His name is Jesus.

And that is why we light candles. For the light. For light at the darkest time of year. For light in our own spirits, for light that nothing invented, engineered, or manufactured could possibly provide, for it is really a light uncreated and eternal, the Light that is the life of all.

Nate Castens
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] Interesting info (and title!) from Mark Trotter, "Why We Light Candles," December 19, 1993

[2] More from Mark Trotter