The Eternal Light

John 6:39 John 8:12 Rev 6:6

I often stretch my mind back to the earliest days of my life and see what I can remember.

There was a holiday once when we went to the Isle of Wight to stay with Auntie Carrie.

We had to go to see her, for she never ventured onto the mainland.

It must have been in about 1960 and it feels like part of another world now.

We got there by boat and then steam train all the way to Ventnor. Then onto a little branch line out to Bonchurch.

She lived alone in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere.

You drew water from the well in her garden and there was no mains electricity.

Auntie Carrie was a silent person and we spent the evenings sitting by the fire, staring into space.

When it was my bedtime I remember feeling frightened to leave the fireside, for everywhere else in the cottage was totally dark.

I would only go upstairs when Auntie Carrie had taken a light from the fire and gone on ahead of me up the stairs lighting oil lamps and candle sticks as she went – so that the way ahead seemed less fearful.

I remember a bookmark which shows a man standing outside the door of a house late at night. He has in his hand a lamp and he is waiting to see if the door will be opened to him. Underneath the picture were the words “I am the light of the world , he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.

I know I’m meant to think of Jesus then, and I do, but I also think of Auntie Carrie lighting the lamps in her funny little cottage, so that I could go to my rest without being scared.

At the heart of this service are two important things we do.

The reading out of the names of our loved ones and the lighting of a candle to their memory.

Electric light can come blazing into our night times at the simple flick of a switch. You have to take your time with a candle and move gently with it because candles speak louder than words, in fact their simple glow takes us to the place where words fail us and feelings take over.

I light a candle for all that has gone before.

The memories that a loved one has left us with.

Those that are painful to recall and also those that shine because they are precious to recall.

I love that line in our second reading. Jesus saying

“I shall lose nothing of all that has been given me – but raise it up on the last day”

I take special heart from that because it reminds me that with God nothing good is condemned to the past and left there, like my fading memories of 1960, but rather God’s love carries those memories with Him into all eternity.

Because of Jesus’ resurrection – he takes all of our pasts – scattered throughout history – and brings them to a united future in Him.

I light a candle for the present moment, for the way I’m feeling here in church tonight, for the battle of hope and fear, darkness and light that is never far away from any of us, and  also for the aspect of our loved one’s lives that feels especially close today – whether that warms us or causes us to wonder. We do not see our loved ones face to face – but their presence burns brightly here and today.

I light a candle for the future. The letting go of our loved ones to be with God is easily said – but very hard to do, but I am comforted by the sense of them going on ahead of us – bearing a light into the future we are share, and lighting the way as they go – even though that way is unknown and the horizon sometimes black.

Gone on ahead of us – that’s what’s happened – and you and I are following on through the course our own lives are taking.

Auntie Carrie did not get her light through striking up a sundry match.

She went to the source, the great fire that burned in the sitting room and warmed us all.

She kindled a flame from there and went forth with it.

So we leave a light burning in church to the memory of those dear to us.

But we also take a light with us so that we can be bearers too.

And the best light bearers are those who can hold a flame, even a single flame, when it is most dark.

RH 1.11.09