I lost my mother last August, and my father followed four months after, passing just before Christmas. My mother had donated her body to science, and her remains were not returned until a few months ago. We decided have a family gathering one last time in the old farmhouse for Christmas before it is gone, and then lay my mothers remains to rest with my fathers on the anniversary of his funeral. We had a beautiful little ceremony in heavy falling snow. My little 13 year old niece wrote a short poem for her mother to read that absolutely blew me away: out of the mouths of children!!!!
While I was there, I visited with my aunt who is now 93 years old, she was my father’s older sister, and she was also my godmother for my baptism nearly 53 years ago. Since my baptism as a baby, I can not every recall going to church with my aunt, let alone a church in my hometown. With my aunt being frail and on oxygen, along with the snow and icy roads, I asked her if I could pick her up and take her to the Sunday morning service on Christmas Eve. It made her day. She told me how she has always worried about my grandfather, her father, because she could never get him to go to a church, though she tried until the day he died a week after his 100th birthday. She has told me this before and it has always weighed heavy upon her heart. I assured her that she had nothing to worry about; I knew grandpa, and I could tell her with confidence that he knew the Lord, because he spoke to me of God as a child. I explained to her that grandpa never rejected God, what he had rejected was the hypocrisy of the church, and so he refused to enter one.
But if I could go back one more time and sit with my grandfather, I think I would try to explain to him that although I understood his steadfastness in refusal, going to the church was not about his salvation, but rather about comforting others in their salvation. And so I invited my niece to come along as well. My aunt was so very happy that we came and picked her up and went to church with her.
At the end of service, the pastor took a few minutes to invite everyone back that evening for a candle lit Christmas Eve service. Now the pastor asked his congregation to think upon something. He said in this dark old building, if we hold up one candle, its not going to be very bright in here; but if we all come together and we each hold up a candle, then won’t it be a just a little but brighter in here? Well, I have thought upon that question, as I have thought upon the ropes of bondage the servant cast forth. I asked my Lord if the servants of the field do not yet know how to use the ropes that once bound them, nor do they know how to work together as one, then how does a son teach them?
So because the pastor had invited all to come together and hold a candle, the Lord asked me to consider the candles; what did I see? And when I looked, I saw how one person holding a single candle provided some light, but it was dim, barely lighting that which surrounded him. Then I looked and saw the others, how they too held their own candle, and together they provided a little more illumination; but as I looked closer, I saw that each was still holding his own candle, providing what light they could. Then I considered the ropes of bondage that the servants still carried about, for as the candle, they too each carried their own rope.
And as I considered, the Lord asked, do you not yet see? For the ropes of bondage my servants do carry are the doctrines and traditions of men. With every denomination, the rope was woven slightly different, but it was sufficient to the task of binding them to a schoolmaster for a season or two. And then I understood that the servants of the field, although they have been set free from their bondage, they will be unable to work together until they can lay down the ropes that once bound them. They must lay down the ropes of their doctrines and traditions of men, and take ahold together of that one rope that is Christ.
Then the Lord asks me, what of the candles? And I said they each hold unto themselves their own lit candle, shining forth their own light. And in the darkness, that light does not cast a long shadow. For indeed when they put forth their own light it was so dim as to barely see the walls of the basket that covered them. And the Lord showed me as they must learn to lay down the ropes that once bound them, they must also learn to douse their own lights, so that the Glory of the Lord might be manifest in them in the midst of the darkness; and when that glory shall shine forth, there shall be no bushel to contain it. As the friend of the bridegroom said, I must decrease, so that He may increase.
