One of the aspects of worshiping at a liturgical church is that it has an ancient feel to it. That’s on purpose. Liturgical churches seek to connect the present day with the ancient reality of the faith. The sainted Robert Webber wrote a whole series of books on this topic called “Ancient-Future”. So our worship should feel kind of old, and kind of new. This can be a hard balance to strike, but we try. One of the things that gives our worship a bit of that “ancient” feel is our lighting — no, not the recessed ceiling lights — the decorative lighting, our candles.
Last semester I attended one of the events that was being hosted in our building by one of our partner campus ministries. They had some pretty cool LED lights that shot up the wall and gave the place a new feel and a new color. In fact, I was kind of jealous of their lighting, I thought it would be an awesome compliment to our liturgical colors to light up our walls in purple for Lent or red for Reformation day. But I would probably incur quite a bit of wrath and those lights aren’t cheap. They may have had awesome LED lighting, but they didn’t have what we have, candles. Old school, fire hazard candles.
And even though our candles are an aspect of our worship that is different than other churches, we often don’t explain why they are there. So here’s a quick little run down.
Altar candles – Altar candles (the two on the altar) originated as a practical solution to dark sanctuaries and probably priests with failing eyesight. The two candles on the altar were simply meant originally as “desk lights” for the priest who was leading communion. For this reason, technically the altar candles should not be lit during non-communion services.
Sanctuary Lamp (aka “Eternal Flame”) – You may have noticed this has gone missing from our sanctuary. It is a red glass globe with a candle burning inside it that was attached to the ceiling and hung down. The history of this thing dates back to our Roman Catholic roots. In Roman Catholic theology, you would light this candle is there was left over communion host (bread/body) in a little box called a “tabernacle”. Lutherans don’t really use tabernacles because we’re don’t believe that the host remains Jesus’ body when communion is over. But we kept the light for some obtuse reason and reimagined its meaning as being a sign of the eternal or constant presence of the Holy Spirit. If things go as planned, we’ll welcome this candle back into our sanctuary on Pentecost Sunday this year.
The Pascal (or Christ) Candle – This candle, referred to by our acolytes as “the BIG candle” originated as a candle that would burn throughout the Easter season sort of like the Sanctuary Lamp does. That’s why it’s SO BIG. The Easter season lasts for 49 days. However, since we only light our candle on Sundays around here, we use it throughout the year to designate “Christ festivals,” the festival days of the church that specifically commemorate something of Jesus’ life and during Baptisms to designate Christ’s presence in that sacrament.
Personal candles – It became in vogue to use personal candles for services like Christmas Eve candlelight services, Easter vigil services, and Pentecost services (although we don’t recommend attaching the candles to your head). This is a rather new development in the church, but one that has a special meaning when we see the light of Christ distributed throughout the congregation.
Advent candles – These candles are a sort of calendar or “countdown” to Christmas. Normally placed in a wreath, they count out two purple (or blue) Sundays, one pink, and a last purple (or blue) Sunday for the four weeks of Advent that lead up to Easter.
All of our candles, however, point to one clear picture of who Jesus Christ is for us. He is the light of the world. He is the light by which we see the rest of the things in our lives. So when you see the candles lit this Sunday, may you remember that He came to light up your life.