This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Advent and it is also Christmas Eve! That means that this Sunday we will complete the lighting of our Advent candles.

During our morning worship service at 10:00 a.m., we will be lighting the Fourth Candle: The Candle of Love. During our evening Christmas Eve worship service at 7:00 p.m., we will be lighting the final candle: The Christ Candle. These will accompany the first three Advent candles which are the candles of Hope, Peace, and Joy.

It is fitting that Love is the final of the Advent candles because without it, the first three—Hope, Peace, and Joy—have no way of finding fruition in the world or our lives.

Love is a word that we casually use to describe anything from a teenage crush to the motivation for working for social justice. The Greeks broke love down into three categories: Eros (physically passionate love), Philia (the love between friends), and Agape (an altruistic love lived out in community). The Apostle Paul famously said there are three spiritual qualities: “faith, hope, and love and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)

So, from that, we can say that love is dynamic and multifaceted as well as being THE predominate spiritual quality of the human condition. Still, what is it?

A pure scientist will tell you that love doesn’t really exist at all. Love, they say, is just a chemical reaction caused by the hormone oxytocin. In other words, there is nothing other-worldly about it. It is strictly part of our biology.

The reason that sounds ridiculous, at least to me, is because love is not a matter of science. As much as we want “proof” of everything before we will declare it “real”, we need a lens other than science to find Love. That’s because Love draws us to that which is un-measurable: celebration, courage, humor, forgiveness, respect, loyalty, compassion, listening, and creativity.

You cannot quantify any of those things any more than you can quantify God. And yet they comprise the foundation of life itself; just like God. That’s because, in the end, Love is God.

Knowing this, we can learn a great deal about the nature of God. For one, to appreciate love (like appreciating art, music, or poetry) requires vulnerability. This is certainly a quality that God displays in coming to the world in the form of a tiny baby; completely dependent on US—humanity.

Love also passionately feels the feelings of others; their highs and lows, their joys and sorrows. So it is with God in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

That brings us to the last candle on the Advent Wreath which is the Christmas Candle itself; the Christ Candle. Lighting this candle symbolizes our exit from Advent and our entry into the Christmas season.

More importantly, it brings the previous candles together in one person, one glorious incarnation of God that makes tangible Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love in our lives and in our world. We make Christ manifest in the world when we practice these qualities.

May we continue to contemplate the importance of Christ’s coming as we keep our Advent candles lit through Epiphany Sunday, January 7th.

See you in church,
–Rev. Dominic