As Christmas approaches each year, I get excited because I love Christmas and all the excitement and buzz around church activities that it brings.
One of my favourite activities at Christmas is Christingle services. We used to have them in my church when I was a child and teenager (I have fond memories of toasting marshmallows on the candle) and my passion for them has resulted in more and more being made in my local community each year!
So, from the middle of November onwards, I am on ‘cutting holes in oranges’ duty’ and last year was no exception! Around 300 Christingles later, I was sick of the sight and smell of oranges… and yet excited to do it all again next year.
It’s not just the tangible nature of the activity that appeals to children (although the sweets are a major factor!), and its use as a great teaching tool to explain what Christmas is all about (Jesus, God’s light, the candle, entering the world, the orange). But for me, the true power of the Christingle is in the lighting.
Unfortunately, the idea of combining children and lit flames can be too much for some, demonstrated by our local primary school only letting the eldest two classes light their Christingles, following complaints from a couple of parents.
However, managed well, the risk is minimal and the sensation so powerful that it’s worth it. There’s something about a lit candle which is mesmorising. It stops the liveliest of children in their tracks as they stare in wonder at the flickering flame on the bizarre concoction that is a Christingle.
The word we’re looking for here is awe. There’s something about the darkness and the sea of lit candles in the darkness, as well as the music and singing (even though it’s ‘Away in a Manger’ for the hundredth time!), that speaks powerfully to children and adults alike. It gives us a sense of something greater than just what we experience every day, a feeling that’s more than sentimental, that points towards the other-worldly, the spiritual, a ‘God-moment’ here on earth.
In the run-up to Christmas, it reminds us of that sense of awe and wonder that the shepherds experienced when the angels appeared to them and told them of Jesus’ birth. We are so used to the Christmas story that it can lose its impact, but when we remember that God came to earth to become one of us, in order to save us, because of his immense love for us, let’s be filled with awe and wonder again, not just when candles are lit and children sing, and not just at Christmas time, but as we stand before God in prayer and remember, with awe, what he has done for us.
Although it’s now January and Christmas seems a long way off, if you haven’t tried making Christingles with children before, I’d recommend giving it a try this year. The Children’s Society has all the advice and resources that you’ll need for planning a Christingle service. I hope you discover the wonder of Christingles in 2015.
Emma Hughes is the Children’s and Families Worker at St Richard’s Hanworth.
Christingles image by Andrew Fogg, used under Creative Commons licence.