Advent 2025 - The Christ Candle: God’s Peacebuilding Revolution
On Christmas Eve we light the Christ candle, the center of our Advent wreath.
Across these four candles—hope, peace, joy, and love—we have traced how Advent’s light was dimmed by empire. What early Christians once practiced as a daring, communal imagination under oppression was gradually tamed—folded into imperial order, stripped of its power, and turned inward.
Yet by recovering Advent’s light, we can return to Jesus himself—the one whose birth, life, and cross revealed what God’s reign truly looks like. In Christ, divine power entered the world through vulnerability; divine justice arrived through mercy. His coming was—and remains—God’s peacebuilding revolution: nonviolent, enemy-loving, and world-renewing. The same Christ who unsettled Rome’s false peace still confronts every empire that mistakes control for order, charity for justice, and sentiment for love. Advent, then, is not a countdown to Christmas but rather allegiance to the revolutionary way of Jesus, whose birth declared that God’s reign begins from the margins and moves inexorably toward the healing of the world.
Remembering the Journey
Each candle we’ve lit points not just to an idea but to the character of Christ himself—the one who embodied these virtues in a world much like ours: divided, exploited, and ruled by fear.
Hope, once prophetic imagination under oppression, was tamed into optimism—a privatized wish that things might improve. But Jesus embodied what Walter Brueggemann calls “energized imagination born in resistance to imperial despair.” His words and actions awakened people to envision a different world and to imagine God’s future even while living under Caesar’s rule. Jesus’ hope was a refusal to accept the empire’s version of what is possible, and the courage to live as though God’s new world were already breaking in.
Peace, once the costly labor of reconciliation, was baptized into imperial order. Rome called its domination “Pax.” But in Jesus, peace was redefined: not the calm of control, but the costly work of making enemies into neighbors. He broke walls of hostility (Eph. 2:14), disarmed power through forgiveness, and blessed his followers not when they avoided conflict but when they worked for peace.
Joy, once the strength of the persecuted, was reshaped into a tame and sentimental feeling—the self-satisfaction of the empire calling its own order “blessed.” But the joy of Jesus is not triumphalism; it is belonging that defies despair. His joy was born of communion and purpose—of knowing that love still binds the weary and the hopeful into God’s new creation. It is the joy that can weep and still sing.
Love, once the shared risk of mutual belonging, became the managed care of the powerful. But in Jesus, love took flesh. He healed by touching the untouchable, restored dignity through presence, and gave his life to reconcile friend and foe alike. His agapē love is not sentiment or supervision but proximity, solidarity, and shared power—reconnecting what fear and hierarchy have torn apart.
SUGGESTED PRACTICE: CARRY THE LIGHT
After lighting the Christ candle, turn off all the other lights in your home. Sit in the quiet glow for a moment. Watch how the light flickers but doesn’t go out.
Then, pass a small candle or flashlight from person to person and say together: “God’s light keeps shining.”
Talk for a few minutes about:
Where have we seen light this week—something kind, brave, or healing?
When was something hard, and what helped us keep going?
What can we do this week to help someone else feel seen or loved?
End with a short prayer:
“God of light, thank you for coming close.
Help us bring your hope, peace, joy, and love
into every place that feels dark or lonely.
Keep our hearts brave and gentle. Amen.”
Our full Advent devotional is available on our website, so you can access it anytime. Get the full devotional here, and feel free to share it.
