Tag: Christmas Eve

Lighting the Christ Candle 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, Christmas

[The 4 Advent candles should be lit before the service]

During the Advent season, we have waited like expectant parents for God to deliver – to show up like Amazon with the promised gifts of hope, peace, joy and love. We wait in a world that has never needed those gifts more. And God hides our gifts in plain sight, in Bethlehem, right where the prophets told us they would be. And like every year, we’re surprised, still not convinced that God’s Messiah should be born in a barn.


Tonight our waiting is rewarded, as we celebrate again the gift of unconditional love, and the marvelous ways God breaks through the darkness, and leads us to the Light of the World. God showed the shepherds and the magi the way to Bethlehem. And tonight God is showing us the Way again.


[Light the Christ candle as the next paragraph is read]


We light the Christ Candle on this holy night to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. He has led us here and calls us to follow him on a marvelous journey of seeking, finding, waiting, hoping, and spreading His Holy light.

Prayer: (Please join me in the prayer on the screen)


O eternal God, forgive us when we doubt that a peasant boy of low estate could possibly heal our fearful and divided world. When our skepticism threatens to overwhelm us, wrap us in the warm swaddling cloths of hope, peace, joy and love. We have waited and prayed for your Messiah. Now it’s time for us to receive the most precious gift ever. May Christ be born in us this night. Set us aglow with the light of Christ, to warm and heal broken lives and light our darkened world. In the holy name of the one we celebrate this night, Amen.

Northwest UMC, Columbus, Ohio

Lighting of the Christ Candle

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christmas, prayer

We know the Christmas story so well it doesn’t shock us like it should. God in human form born in a barn! What kind of delivery room is that for a Holy Child?  But that is what happens when we think outside the box like that humble innkeeper in Bethlehem.  He made room when there was no room, and his stable became a home for the Holy. 

All during the four weeks of Advent this year we have been exploring what it means to create a home for the Holy in 2024. We have lit a candle on our Advent Wreath for each of the core values needed to house the Holy: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Those are the necessary human qualities for God to set up camp in our hearts.

Tonight we are adding the final piece of our home for the Holy. As the letter to the Ephesians tells us: “with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

Christ is the cornerstone who holds any home for the Holy together and preserves it against all threats the forces of evil can muster. The Christ child is born in a stable, not in a mansion or a palace, because God favors the poor and humble over the high and mighty. And the message from Bethlehem is that we can all become a home for the Holy if we make room in our hearts for the strangers and the outsiders in our midst.

And so tonight on this Holy Night we light the Christ Candle to celebrate the coming again of the Light of the World.

Please pray with me:

O God, with grateful hearts we once more give thanks for the gift of a helpless baby who comes to save us from ourselves and from the temptations of the world. He is our cornerstone, the solid foundation upon which we stand when everything else fails us. He will live in our hearts when all the Christmas lights are turned off.  His light will never be out of season. It never burns out or goes dark. Calm our fears on this silent night. Make us brave enough to let Christ into our hearts, that we may all be one small part of his Holy home tonight and forever. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, Christmas Eve 2024