Candles

Everything is dark. People line up for miles, staring straight ahead in silence. In their hands, they hold a smoking candle—no flame or light, just melting wax, smoking: time running out. As that melted wax collects in a puddle at the bottom, so do their tears. They line up, and stare straight ahead because that’s what they’ve been trained to do. The candles grow shorter and shorter as the wax melts, and as the candle grows shorter, so does their time.

Their backs are turned against a gate: one they’ve never seen, but one they’ve only been told of. They’ve been told it looms high and it’s unbreakable and impenetrable and irreversible. But it’s only what they’ve been told. They’ve never seen it because they’ve never turned around. They’ve never looked. The one who calls himself the gatekeeper has threatened them against turning around. He’s told them the gate is too tall and they’re too small and their guilt is too big to ever make it to the other side. He’s told them to keep standing on that line, staring straight ahead into the darkness as their smoking candle melts and their time runs out.

Their tears fall. They collect and coat the candle in wet—and the hooded gatekeeper laughs and tells them the tears will hold in the darkness. He tells them they’ll never stop falling, lower and lower. They believe him, too, because they’ve never seen anything other than darkness. Oh, but if only they would turn around. If only they would turn toward the big scary gate they’ve been told of, they’d see that the gate’s doors have already been flung wide, through One Man’s Arms flung wide.

And then steps forth a figure from the gate. Though they don’t turn around, the dark hearts can tell someone has entered the room—Someone without one of those dark, wet, smoking candles.

The true light that gives light to every man is coming into the world. {John 1:9}

They stand in that line and stare straight ahead, into the darkness.

And I’m one of those soldiers lined up with the wet candle. I can’t see what’s in front of me, because that’s what it’s like in the darkness: you can only see what’s immediately in front of you. So you go to what looks good now, because in the darkness, there is no beautiful future.

I stand in the line and stare straight ahead, into the darkness.  Every few seconds the gatekeeper says “that one,” and then they drop, cold blood flowing into the bloodthirsty ground. We are soldiers lined up to be executed, though we don’t know it until the gatekeeper says “that one” to us and we drop. Because it’s all dark, and in the darkness everyone is blind.

But then I feel a presence behind me, one who is not the gatekeeper. I keep looking in front of me, because that’s what I’ve been trained to do: to stare into the darkness and be what I am—a soldier awaiting execution.

I feel the air shift as He walks around me and makes His way to face me. He’s standing in front of me now. He came for me. I gasp: first at how beautiful He is, and then at how dark everything around me is. I had no idea. For it is light that makes everything visible. {Ephesians 4:14} I begin to shake and tremble and I squeeze out the words “What do you want?”

             “That one,” He says, as He points at me.

And I fall to my knees, just like thousands in this same line before me. But this time it’s not in death, but in life. I fall to my knees as I let those words soak in: ones that, for the first time, have been spoken for me rather than against me.

“That one.”

He wants me. My tears begin to coat His feet as I realize this magnificent truth. He wants me. My tears are as the melted wax once was, falling and falling, but rather than killing, they’re building and restoring and gifting. My time is no longer running out, for in His presence time is no such thing. He is infinite.

I gaze up at Him and that light He carries—the one that dispels the darkness. From His lips come those words: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” {Ephesians 4:14} And He reaches out and touches my dark, wet, smoking candle with His lighted one—the Scepter extended from the hand of the King. {Psalm 45:6}

My own candle is lit now—something the gatekeeper told me would never happen.

Because the darkness has not understood the light. {John 1:5}

He extends His hand to me and lifts me from the mud and mire I’m kneeling in and gives me a firm place to stand. {Psalm 40:2}I realize that I know nothing of this Man who has come to save me. I’ve done nothing for Him, and I know nothing of Him. “Where are you from?” I ask Him.

            “Over there,” He points. “And so are you.”

He again takes my hand and turns me in the direction He’s pointing—in the direction of the Light, so that my back is turned against the executioner and I see that the Gate is flung wide into His Land—the one of Light and Grace and Truth. {John 1:14}

It’s the Kingdom of Light.

And He asks me, “Won’t you come with?” My heart leaps for joy because His light has illuminated all the underworkings of the darkness, and I realize that I am being rescued, not constricted or punished. I’m being saved into the Kingdom of Light, where I am a daughter, not a soldier on death’s row. {John 1:12} It’s repentance, really.

So I say yes and run toward the Light because once I’ve tasted and seen, it’s all I want. {1 Peter 2:3} And it’s all I need. It’s repentance, really.

And now I’m living in the Land of the Light—a daughter in the presence of her King. My candle is lit and the flame burns, and I’m refined in the fire of His love. Though it does not stop burning, I am never burnt. {Isaiah 43:2}

Day and night, we dance. It is in this Kingdom of Light that I learn who He is and also who I am.

“Go show them,” He says, as we dance among the gardens laden with mercy and truth.

“Go show them,” He says as we dance across the ocean’s edge coated in grace and renewal.

“Go show them,” He says as we dance through the Golden Gate that has been flung wide for all of His children that are still standing in that line on the other side.

So I do, for I was once one of those dark hearts living in the darkness, but I am now a child of the Light, which means I live in all goodness, righteousness and truth, seeking to please Him in all things. {Ephesians 4:8-10}So I go. And though I dance into the kingdom of darkness, the Light does not leave me. It is not muted, nor is my laughter. For in His presence there is fullness of joy. {Psalm 16:11}

“Let light shine out of darkness,” He says, as we dance behind death’s row and make our way to the front of the line laden with blood that need not be spilt. {2 Corinthians 4:6}

           For the hands I’m holding have already been opened wide and emptied for our sake.

And He pulls me closer and smiles and so do I, and I’m caught up in Him—a daughter dancing with the King in front of death’s row. My gaze is never broken from His face. And In the middle of the battle field between the captives and the enemy, my candle burns bright in the fire of His love. As we dance, gazes are broken and redirected onto this Body of Light that moves and breathes and sings and dances because of the King of Light—the true Light that gives light to every man. {John 1:9}

And with our steps in sync, we dance toward the child being born again into the Light, as He extends that scepter toward His child and lights the dark, wet, smoking candle with the fire of His love.

So we dance toward the Gate in joyful repentance as we celebrate the redirection of His once lost child who has now seen the Light and has been found. We dance toward the Kingdom of Light, with our eyes forever fixed on Him.

And my little candle continues to burn with a fire that will never be quenched.