A Children’s Sermon Series from Pastor Brooks…
Part V: The Fifth Candle
On Christmas Eve, Kirstin plodded through the snow to Skag’s home. She knocked on the door three times with her small little hand. Skags answered the door with a great big, “Hello there, little girl!” He then invited Kirstin inside. As Kirstin drank some hot chocolate Skags made for her, Skags lit the first four candles. Skags then continued the story of the young pirate named Leo. The pirates rejoiced in the good news brought by the angel. At long last, they had a village to call home. But, there was one problem. The angel did not give the pirates any directions to their new home. The angel said, “For this journey, you need no map. Find your way to the wonder of Christmas, and there you shall find your village home.” The captain of the ship said, “Surely, there is something in the Bible that will tell us how to get to this village.” The captain had all of the older pirates of the ship meet in his cabin, and they poured over the Bible and the stories of the birth of Jesus. Leo wanted to help. After all, he was the one the angel visited first, but the captain told him he was too young to be of any use. This was a matter for grown-up pirates.
The grown-up pirates spent hours searching the scriptures and scratching their heads, then searching the scriptures again and scratching their heads again, but they could not find anything. Eventually, it was three o’clock in the morning, and Christmas day was only a few hours away. Leo decided that this matter was too important to be left only to the grown-up pirates, so he opened up his Bible and began searching the scriptures himself. He knew that the older pirates kept reading the stories of Jesus’s birth over and over again, so he figured that the key must not be in the usual stories of Jesus’s birth. “It must be elsewhere,” he said to himself. He turned his Bible to the Gospel of John, and he began to read it from the beginning and after only reading a little ways, he found the key to the angel’s riddle. About Jesus, the Gospel of John says, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
As Leo read this, he realized what it was the pirates were to look for. Because Leo’s job on the ship was to stay awake at night and make sure the ship did not run into any rocks, Leo knew that at night on the ship when one looked across the sea to the land, there was only one light that the darkness did not overcome: the light of the lighthouse. Leo then ran to the captain’s cabin, and he explained what it was that they needed to do. The captain was reluctant to believe that this young lad could have found the answer, but the pirates were running out of time, and they had no choice but to listen to him. The captain steered the ship to the nearest lighthouse. When the ship got close, Leo rowed a small boat to the shore, and ran up all 332 steps to the top of the lighthouse, and there at the very top of the lighthouse was a great big light and next to the light was a note written in gold ink, the kind of gold ink that only an angel would have, and the note read, “Dear Leo, You have found your way to the village where no man, woman, nor child is rejected, where all are affirmed for who they are. In this village, shines the light of Christ. Share this light with all those you meet.”
Just outside the lighthouse, there was indeed a village, and that day the friendly pirates celebrated the first Christmas that they had celebrated in years. They celebrated by singing Christmas carols and drinking wassail and eating Christmas cookies, and there in the middle of the village was a special candle that the villagers lit to remind them of the light of Christ.
Skags then looked at Kirstin, and he got very teary eyed, and he said, “Kirstin, the young lad Leo is still alive, but he is not so young anymore. He is now an old man, and his name is Leo Skags.” Kirstin’s mouth fell open, and she said, “You’re Leo!?” Skags nodded his head. Then, Kirstin asked, “Does that mean Norwich is the village that accepts everyone for who they are?” Skags nodded his head again, and he gave Kirstin a great big hug. Skags then lit the fifth and final candle as he said, “This candle represents the light of Christ. May you share it with all those you meet.”