Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · December 31, 2006
First Sunday After Christmas
A Christmas Story
The Christmas Candle
By Richard Paul Evans*
Retold by
Kim Ryan
Over the years, and actually more years than I am willing to count now, it has become a part of Broadway’s tradition that on the Sunday after Christmas, I share a story. Part of the joy for me is finding the story to share, and capturing that story, and being captured by the story.
I offer the story each year as a gift – a gift to you – as Broadway Christian Church, with great appreciation and love for who you are, for who we are. I receive the gift of a story that becomes more than a story on paper, but becomes a story within. I believe in the power of story to change us, as we have been changed by the story of Christ.
This year the story I will be sharing with you is written by an author who’s known as Richard Paul Evans. You may be familiar with Richard Paul Evans. He’s probably best known for his book The Christmas Box. But this story is a story he has written for children. Of course, we know that stories for children are always stories for adults. So, I offer to you this morning, The Christmas Candle by Richard Paul Evans.
On a snowy Christmas Eve a young man made his way along a dark and deserted cobblestone street. His name was Thomas. He was wrapped in a woolen cloak. There was a knapsack flung across his back. In his hand hung a tin lantern. Behind the glass panes of the lantern were the remains of a candle well spent.
When Thomas saw the glow of candlelight coming from the village chandler, the candle-maker’s shop, he hurried his steps along, turning onto a snow-covered pathway. A beggar stood in his way, holding his cup and shaking it for a coin. Thomas pushed him aside impatiently and opened the door.
Inside the shop were metal pots filled with tallow and beeswax hanging on a stone hearth. The old chandler stood with his sculptor’s tools in hand, surrounded by the beautiful creations he had made from wax.
“I’m lucky to find you here,” said Thomas. “The town is empty.”
The old chandler gazed at Thomas silently while the young man looked around at the rows of sculpted candles. There were fairies and sprites, and angels with see-through wings, and fairy princesses with fragile gowns as delicate as lace. They smelled of myrrh and fragrant frankincense and smells of meadow flowers.
“You are a foolish old man,” said Thomas. “You spend your hours making beautiful things that devour themselves. How long before this angel is melted into an ugly clump of wax by the flame?” He pointed to a row of simpler candles. “I’ll take one of those. I just need light.”
The old chandler looked at him steadily before he said, “The Christmas candles are of no good to you.”
Thomas was startled by the sternness of his response, and he laughed, “I think it would do me much good not to be stumbling in the dark. Are you playing me, old man? I will not pay more than that candle is worth.”
“The candle is only four coppers . . . but you may find it costly.” His words were strangely serious.
“Just give me the candle! I have money! It’s late. My family is waiting for me. I just need some illumination to help me find my way.”
“Oh, it is illumination you desire?” the wise old man challenged Thomas.
Thomas said, “That’s all I need. I just need some light.”
The chandler nodded slowly. “So you do. So you do.” He took one of the Christmas candles and dipped it over the flame and set it inside the frame of the lantern. Thomas tossed his coins on the counter and headed for the door. The old man pursed his lips in an odd and amused smile. Then he said, “Merry Christmas to you, my brother.”
Thomas was surprised by the farewell. He stammered in return, “And to you… to you as well.” He stepped hastily out into the darkness, the lantern lighting the road ahead.
He had only gone a short distance when a shadow emerged from an alleyway. A robber, he thought fearfully. He lifted the lantern. “Who’s there?” he called. But in the light of the lantern, he could see that it was only a frail woman huddled against the cold.
Then she spoke to him, “A pence, sir. Do you have a pence? Please?”
Thomas narrowed his eyes in contempt at her. But when he looked more closely, he gasped. He knew that face. He knew that face well. It was his mother! “Mother! What is this? Why do you come to me as a beggar?”
“Sir, just a half pence, please?”
“Where are my brothers, and where is my sister? What are doing here like this? Mother, you are going to catch a chill.” He reached for her, but she pulled away. “Here, take my cloak.” He removed his cloak, and he held it out to her.
She came forward cautiously and snatched the cloak and retreated back into the shadows. As she stepped out of the candle’s light, her face changed. She was not his mother, but a beggar indeed! Clutching the cloak, she disappeared into the darkness.
“What a strange trick,” Thomas said. He wrapped his arms across his chest against the cold, wishing he had kept his cloak.
Being anxious to continue on his journey on his way, he walked along pacing himself more quickly in the frigid air. He had not gone far. He had just passed beneath the awning of a darkened inn, when the light of the lantern revealed someone lying in the gutter. Thomas came closer, and once again he gasped. “Has the world gone crazy? Elin, my brother! Are you sick?” He sat the lantern down, and he pulled his brother’s limp arm across his shoulder and struggled to stand to lift him. “Elin, I cannot carry you.”
He knocked loudly on the door of the inn until a grim-faced woman opened the door.
“Please, ma’am. My brother is sick, and I am afraid he is going to freeze before I can get back with help. Can I leave him here?”
“Well, you can leave him for the price of an evening. And that price is a shilling.”
“A shilling?” Thomas searched his pockets. I just have a sixpence.”
The woman scowled at him and began to shut the door.
“Wait! Wait! My knapsack is worth more than a shilling. I’ll give you that and the trousers within. They’ve been newly tailored. I’ll give you everything.”
The woman looked over his bundle of a knapsack and then she held out her hand. Thomas took it off, gave it to her with the remaining money he had. She opened the door and said, “Bring him in.”
Thomas left the lantern sitting on the curb, as he pulled Elin into the foyer of the inn. And as the beggar’s face changed, so did Elin’s. It was not his brother.
“So you say that is your brother lying in the gutter?”
Thomas gaped at the man. “No. He is not my brother…”
“You must be mad,” said the woman, and she shoved him out the door.
Outside, Thomas picked up the lantern. He looked through its glass panes. He whispered, “Yours is a strange light indeed.”
He had barely glimpsed the bright lights of home when he came across a little girl shivering in the street.
“Do you have something to eat?”
Thomas looked at her. He felt a stirring in his chest. She was so small. She was about the size of his sister. He quickly pulled the lantern away. He would not let the light shine on her face. He had guessed its trick. And besides, what could he do for her? He had no money left. He did not have anything to eat.
“I have nothing,” he murmured as he walked away from her, willing himself not to look back.
Penniless and cold, Thomas trudged along, barely noticing the houses of his childhood. His own house was dressed for the season with music and laughter coming from inside. He stepped within and his mother exclaimed excitedly, “Thomas, you have arrived!”
His brothers and his sister, hearing her excitement, rushed in to welcome him. When the joviality had settled, his mother looked at him curiously and said, “Thomas, where is your cloak?”
And his brother Elin said, “And why have you no pack?”
Thomas looked solemnly into their bewildered faces. He said, “I gave everything away.”
“To whom?” his mother asked, puzzled.
Thomas looked at the candle waning in the lantern. He said, “The old man spoke the truth. You are costly…” Then a smile spread across his face, a smile of understanding. “And you are of great worth.”
“What old man? Is this a riddle?” asked his sister.
“No, this is not a riddle. An old man who sculpts candles, a wise old man.” he told her. As he looked at her bright and eager face, in his mind, her face became the face of the little child in the street.
Thomas looked at the sumptuous banquet laid out on his family’s table. Suddenly he headed for the door.
“Thomas, where are you going?” asked his sister.
“I must see about another member of our family,” he told her.
As Thomas left the warmth and the fragrance of his home for the cold street, his heart was warm with joy. On that Christmas Eve, a lesson had been learned and taken to heart: If we will see things as they truly are, we will find that everyone, great and small, belong to one family. It is a truth that has been known from the beginning of time, but perhaps it is a truth best seen in the joyous illumination of Christmas.
The End
Richard Paul Evans donates all of the proceeds from his book to a shelter in Salt Lake City for children, very much like our Rainbow House. On Christmas Eve, part of Broadway’s Christmas offering that was given went to the Rainbow House here in Columbia.
May the stories of Christmas, may the joy and illumination of Christmas be present in our lives so that, indeed, others and all may know the glory of our God.
And we say together… “Amen.”
