Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually. [Exodus 27:20 (NLT)]
Although an acolyte usually lights the altar candles at our northern church, our pastor did it yesterday. He came out of the sacristy with an unlit brass candle lighter in his hand, reached up to the sanctuary lamp, removed its red glass globe and took it out of the holder. Using the sanctuary candle, he lit the candle lighter before using it to light the altar candles. After returning the sanctuary lamp to its rightful place on the wall, he explained that, although there had been several books of matches in the sacristy, they all were empty. No one seems to smoke anymore and, being new to our parish, he had no idea where matches might be stored. A resourceful man, he solved the problem perfectly.
Sanctuary lamps probably date back to the original rules Moses was given for the tabernacle and they are often found in Jewish temples. Also called the Christ candle or eternal flame in Christian churches, they burn continually as a reminder of the eternal presence of God. While a sanctuary lamp often is present in traditional or liturgical churches, it certainly isn’t necessary for worship. Our mountain church, for example, doesn’t have one and our Florida church, which meets in the park, doesn’t even have a sanctuary let alone an altar or candles!
What, I wondered, would have happened if, while fiddling with the sanctuary light, our pastor had inadvertently extinguished its flame? Although he would have been embarrassed, worship would have continued without that symbol of God’s lasting presence. Candle or not, God is eternally present and the light of Christ continues to shine in our dark and troubled world. The flame from that one candle lit the altar candles much as the light from Christ lights our lives. God’s flame, however, must not stop with us. Jesus is the light of the world and it’s not enough for us just to shine; like that brass candle lighter, we must pass that light along to those waiting in darkness.
It only takes a spark To get a fire going,
And soon all those around Can warm up in its glowing.
That’s how it is with God’s love Once you’ve experienced it;
You spread His love to ev’ryone. You want to pass it on.
I wish for you my friend This happiness that I’ve found.
You can depend on Him. It matters not where you’re bound.
I’ll shout it from the mountain top. I want my world to know:
The Lord of love has come to me. I want to pass it on.
[“Pass it On” by Kurt Kaiser]
After their recent visit to the oncologist, a friend asked me to pray for her father. His cancer is terminal and she asked me to pray that he will come to know God. He’s been sitting on the fence for quite some time and his time for fence sitting is rapidly running out. As I added him to my prayer list, I wondered, “Can we pray someone to God?”
As I went through my prayer list this morning, I noticed that my prayers are very specific. I pray for those I know who are mourning, but they’re not the only ones dealing with loss. I pray for those I know who are sick and for my friends who are sitting at their loved one’s bedside, but they are not alone. Although I pray for a friend experiencing problems at work, another having financial difficulty, and a family in crisis, I know others must have the same problems. I pray for those I know who are struggling with addictions but can’t come close to naming all who need that prayer. I pray for my pastors and friends in the ministry but pastors (and congregations) everywhere need those same prayers. Unless I hear sirens, I don’t pray for first responders, but those firefighters and paramedics need my prayers more often than that. Some mornings I have enough trouble getting through my long prayer list, how can I add more to it? We’re told to offer prayers of intercession for all of God’s people, yet how can we do His work (or ours) if we spend all day in prayer? We’d be so heavenly minded that we’d be of no earthly use to anyone. Nevertheless, it’s not just my list of people who need my prayers. I suppose I could cover everyone else with a quick “God bless the world and everyone in it,” but that doesn’t seem heartfelt to me.
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. [1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NLT)]
His testimony enraged the Jewish high council and he was taken from the city and stoned to death. Stephen was the first of the Christian martyrs but clearly not the last. We’ve all been horror-stricken by the recent news from Egypt where ISIS thugs attacked Coptic Christians on their way to a remote monastery. According to witnesses, the men were told their lives would be spared if they recited the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith. When they refused to do so, they were gunned down. Since December, more than 100 Coptic Christians have died in Egypt in four different attacks. On Palm Sunday, two of their churches were bombed leaving forty-four dead. It’s not easy being a Christian in Egypt.
I’m in the midst of reading a series of seven children’s fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. Some of them, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I read as a girl but others are new to me. The world of Narnia is a world to which one wants to return again and again and I’m enjoying my visit ever so much. C.S. Lewis, however, was much more than a writer of fantasy, non-fiction and poetry; he was a well-known lecturer, a brilliant scholar and a renowned Christian apologist.
