Christingle

Good afternoon. My name is Karen and I’m the youth worker here at St Hugh’s. Recently we’ve had a few festivals about light. Here in Lewsey we’ve had fireworks and candles for Dwiali and you may have had a chocolate from an advent calendar. We’ve already lit our advent candle to signify that it’s 4 Sundays until Christmas. Christingle is another Christian festival that celebrates light. Each one of these festivals has one thing in common; they all want to chase away the darkness.

I’ve got a few questions for you… make sure you put your hand up nice and high so I can see you.

1st Question: How do you get rid of a dark winter’s night?

2nd Question: How do you see in a dark cupboard?

3rd Question: How do you chase away the darkness when a young child is frightened at night?

So we see, there is only one way to get rid of the darkness that is to replace it with light!

As we had already heard, Jesus is the light of the world. Christians, people here, I, believe that Jesus came to the world to replace the darkness of hatred, jealousy, bitterness, wickedness and death with love, forgiveness and life forever.

I’m going to hold up some words and I want you to tell me the opposite of that word. We’ll start with an easy one. (Love and hate)

Ok, LOVE is going on the light pile and HATE is going on the dark pile… we’ll carry on.

Brilliant. So what do we do with al the dark words? The best thing to do is, chuck them in the bin! We have no need for this in a world where Jesus is.

The light words go by the candle, so that every time we light a candle we remember that Jesus is the light of the world. And that is exactly what we will be doing in a moment. When you are scared or afraid of the dark, remember to get rid of it all you have to do is turn on the light.