For about three years now, Jessi and I have been lighting candles in an Advent wreath at home. We began doing this during the COVID pandemic; it was a way to bring a little familiarity into a scary and unfamiliar season. But we also started doing it because we wanted our daughter to have that visible reminder of Advent right in her home as she grew. Each year since that initial purchase of the candles and the arranging of the wreath, we’ve loaded these materials into a large storage tote along with all the Christmas stuff to be stored in our garage until the candles make their return at the tail end of November the next year.
In and out of the tote.
In and out of the garage.
There’s a rhythm to our little Advent wreath.
This year, however, I noticed a consequence to our Advent rhythm.

We live in Florida, so it’s not uncommon for the contents of our garage to experience a little additional heat. This year in particular, when I removed the Advent candles from the one-gallon IKEA freezer bag where they live for eleven months of the year, I noticed the heat had made an impact. Our once-pristine white Christmas candle —the candle for Christ which resides at the center of the wreath and which we light on Christmas Eve to symbolize Jesus’s birth— bore small purple and pink smudges where wax from the other candles had melted against it.

There was a little legalistic part of me that wanted to chuck these candles and go buy all new ones. “A blemish on our Christ candle?! Heresy!” But the more I stared at our well worn Christ candle, the more I appreciated it.

Christmas is all about the Incarnation— the idea that Jesus came and dwelt among humanity as both fully human and fully divine. In that time, perfect though he was, he still got hungry, got tired, got mud on his cloak, probably spilled some wine every now and then, and so on. Jesus ate, peed, pooped, and blew his nose. He probably stubbed his toe from time to time or got a splinter here and there; he was a carpenter’s stepson after all! And as we remember at this time of year: he was born, and childbirth leaves everyone a little messy, especially when the only available crib is a hay-lined feeding trough.
Jesus wasn’t afraid to get dirty in his life.
In fact, the dirtiness of his life makes it all the more remarkable.

So our stained little Christ candle stays.
It stands proudly at the center of our Advent wreath,
because God thought enough of this creation to come and dwell with us,
taking on all the beautiful messiness of humanity in the process.

Merry Christmas, friends.