Pink Candle Sunday

Some thoughts on Joy

This Sunday, many churches will light the pink candle.
(You can call it rose all you want. It’s pink.)

Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay

Pink had a pretty good year in 2023, thanks in large part to the Barbie movie.

Pink is a color of joy in the church. In former days (and still in some Christian traditions today), Advent was a penitential season, much like Lent. And much like Lent, there was a Sunday in the midst of the purple and penitence with a bit of relief that was showcased through the color pink.

In my context and perhaps in yours, Advent is less penitential these days and more about hope and preparation.

Joy as an interruption to preparation is strangely just as needed as joy in the midst of the sackcloth and ashes of repentance.

I mean, how busy are you right now? How much are you dreaming of the days between Christmas and New Year’s when life (hopefully) will slow down? How excited are you to be done with Christmas?

The pink candle hopefully will remind us that in the midst of our preparations to celebrate, Jesus arrives among us right here and right now. That joy is not relegated to the past and future, but joy is a present reality.

The celebration of the good news of great joy that comes in Jesus’ birth is not merely a one-time event. It is an event that shakes the foundations of the world, that echoes and ripples throughout time and space. Jesus’ incarnation is a domino of joy that tips over every other domino of joy in our lives.

For without that Divine Baby and His arrival of Light, we’d all still be in darkness.

So when you look at that pink candle, a light shining in darkness, I hope you will pause from the busyness and think of the absolute best moments of your life. And I hope you smile.

In pink joy.

Andy