Christmas candles
Photo Courtesy of Martin Thielen
For this year’s December post, I want to share an experience from one of my student pastorates. At the time, I was engaged in PhD studies at Vanderbilt University. My church was preparing for our Christmas Eve candlelight service, one of my favorite worship services of the year.
Since my previous pastorates were large membership churches, I never gave much thought to all the practical details of a Christmas Eve service. Staff and trained volunteers took care of everything. This church, although small, had a well-functioning worship team. So I assumed they had everything in order. It proved an erroneous assumption. I should have been far more involved in the preparation details.
A Rough Start
To begin with, we didn’t make enough bulletins for the large crowd that attended. So, three minutes before the service began, I found myself in the church office running off additional bulletins while simultaneously putting my clergy robe on, hooking up my wireless label microphone, and talking to church members.
When the service began, several minutes late, I realized the PA system had not been activated. During the opening song I had to walk to the back of the church and turn it on. A moment later, I realized that the Christmas tree lights were off. I motioned to the ushers to turn them on but they couldn’t understand what I was trying to say to them. So while the liturgist prayed the opening prayer, I slipped over to the tree to plug it in. Unfortunately, it was a short prayer. After the liturgist said “Amen,” the congregation chuckled as they saw me bent over the tree, trying to get the light plug into the socket. On top of that, a baby was crying—loudly—and I could barely hear myself talk.
A few moments later I led the congregation in the passing of the peace. Although I wasn’t feeling very peaceful, I said, “the peace of Christ be with you.” The congregation responded, “and also with you.” During the greeting time that followed, one of our ushers walked up to the platform to speak to me. How nice, I thought. She came to offer me the peace of Christ. However, she didn’t say anything about the peace of Christ. Instead, she said, “Martin, we don’t have any candles!”
Where Are the Candles?
You need to remember this was a Christmas Eve candlelight worship service. At that point I about lost it. Still, worship still had to go on. So while the liturgist read the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke and the congregation sang “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” the ushers frantically looked for our Christmas Eve candles in the huge closet at the back of the sanctuary. When they finally found them the lead usher looked at me, grinned from ear to ear, and made a dramatic fist pump into the air. By that point in the service I was giving a brief devotional. As I spoke, I watched the ushers place those little round paper protectors on the bottom of each candle (to keep people from being burned by dripping wax.)
The congregation had no clue what was happening. They could not see all the drama unfolding behind them. However, from my perch, I could see every painful detail, including the ushers running out of candle protectors. I watched as one of them dashed out of the sanctuary. A moment later she returned, victoriously holding a stack of construction paper she procured from the children’s department. She began cutting out circles of construction paper and poked holes in the middle to serve as homemade candle wax protectors.
The Empty Chalice
At this point, the crisis had been averted and my anxiety had died down. It was almost time to celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion, and I looked forward to this special part of the service. However, when I looked at the Communion table, I noticed that the chalice was empty. Nobody has placed grape juice into the cup! I was mortified. Thankfully, the congregation was still singing the Communion preparation song. I motioned to one of the ushers to come forward, and, in a whisper, explained the situation. She quietly went to the altar, picked up the chalice, and headed towards the kitchen to get the grape juice.
At that point I begin the Great Thanksgiving for the Holy Sacrament of Communion. As I said, “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty,” I watched the usher return from the kitchen with a jar of Welch’s grape juice. She carefully poured it into the chalice. Another usher continued to cut out little candle protectors from construction paper, poked holes in the middle, and placed them on the candles.
The chalice, now full of grape juice, was ceremonially brought to the Communion table just in time for the consecration of the elements. People in the congregation assumed this was a planned addition to the service, a way to emphasis the sacredness of the moment. Ironically, the grape juice mistake added to the beauty of the experience.
A few minutes later, people started coming forward for Holy Communion. Young and old, married and single, happy and hurting, person after person received homemade pieces of bread and dipped them into the chalice. While I said “The body of Christ, given for you,” and the liturgist said, “The blood of Christ given for you,” a soloist sang beautiful Christmas music. I felt an overwhelming sense of God’s presence and community connection.
Finally, the service was almost over. Right before the lighting of the candles and the singing of “Silent Night,” the ushers passed out the candles to the congregation, who thought we planned it this way. How nice, they thought, the ushers waited until the very end of the service, when we actually needed them, to hand out the candles. Little did they know!
By now all the candles were lit and the congregation was singing “Silent Night.” Almost on cue, the crying baby started screaming its lungs out again. But it only added to the ambiance. After all, we were celebrating the birth of a child.
Holy Laughter
As the congregation continued to sing “Silent Night,” I walked to the back of the sanctuary in order to greet people after the service. After safely turning off my microphone, the ushers and I looked at one another and, as hard as we tried not to, we began to laugh. Thankfully, the organ, the singing of the congregation, and the screaming baby drowned out our laughter.
When we got to the final stanza of “Silent Night” the laughing subsided, the baby quit crying, the lights dimmed, and candlelight filled the room. As I looked at that beautiful scene, I thought about the events of the past hour. We didn’t have enough bulletins, we started late, the PA system wasn’t turned on, the tree lights were off, we didn’t have candles ready, we ran out of candle protectors, there was no grape juice in the Communion chalice, and a baby was screaming its guts out.
And yet, in spite of all that, we still had a profound experience of worship and Christian community. I thought to myself, This is the church of Jesus Christ. With all of its flaws. With all of its humanity. And with all of its glory. I felt deeply grateful to be a minister, even at this small, struggling, student pastorate. It was one of the most joyful moments in my pastoral life.
NOTE: This story is an excerpt from my most recent (free) book, My Long Farewell to Traditional Religion and What Remains.