The Peace Light | Advent Devotional Day 25

Advent 2025 DevotionalCore | Peace
December 24, 2025
Written by Pastor Sarah Rugenstone

Title: The Peace Light


Buckle up - I’m dropping some Christmas Peace Light lore. Last Christmas in order to light our church advent candles, I used this little beeswax candle that had once been lit in the Church of the Navitity in Bethlehem, the place where it’s believed Jesus was born. My great uncle, a retired United Methodist pastor, gifted me these little candles. See, historically, there have been monks there that keep the Peace Candle lit all year. They’ll light little candles such as the one I held last year, and say that the essence of the light and peace of Christ remains in the wick, even once blown out.

I shared this story with the Clayton site as I lit the first candle on our wreath, last year. A woman in our congregation, told her Dad, Mark, who then reached out to me and said “what if I told you I have the actual peace light. From Bethlehem. In a lantern. In a bucket. In my car.”

Naturally, my curiosity piqued.

He then shared with me that there is a group of boy scouts from Austria who have in years past literally trekked down to Bethlehem, to retrieve the peace light, and then pass it on. Now, with the monstrosities happening in The West Bank, we are using light that came from the Church of the Nativity prior to 2023. They will put it in a lantern, or pilot lights, and keep it safe and lit. They fly with the peace light lit across the ocean, and it lands in New York City, and then a guy drives it through the country, passing the light to churches on his path.

This year, when Mark reached out to me about the light, I knew I wanted to participate again. I love the symbolism of the light being slowly passed from person to person to person. However, I could not find my lantern from last year… but I would try to get the light no matter what! Then, the morning rolled around where I was to pick up the light. I still didn’t know where my lantern was, and every store in St. Louis that should carry oil lanterns, apparently has never heard of this invention before. Not a lantern in sight. So I headed to the church where I was meeting Mark and Brian, the guy who drives the light from New York, hoping they’d have a lantern to share.

As I arrived, stressed and a bit frustrated I couldn’t find a lantern, Mark showed me the lit lantern I could borrow. He put it in this ventilated bucket, and we carried them out to our cars. As the grey day stretched around us and wind whipped our hair and jackets, Mark waved at me as we both got into our respective cars with our little lights, and Mark said with both joy and conviction-“Go, Share the light!”

My heart warmed and also broke, knowing how hard it is sometimes to find light in this world.

I saw this quote on social media the other day that actually brought me a lot of hope as I sit here anticipating Christmas while the world around seems to fall apart. “It can be overwhelming to witness/ experience / take in all the injustices of the moment; the good news is that *they’re all connected*. So if your little corner of work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole damn cloth.”

We are all connected. And while that can be heart wrenching it’s simultaneously steeped with hope. The light that connects us back to our siblings in the West Bank and the horrors they’re living through, the light that connects us to the families in this country that are being separated, the light connects us to folks who lost everything in a storm, connects us to people society wants to forget about… because everything came into being through the Word – the light. We pull at threads of injustice, slowly, methodically. We spread light and hope slowly, methodically.

So tonight, with both joy and conviction, like Mark, I urge you to share the light–and know it will not be put out.

Support our siblings:

World Central Kitchen
 
UNICEF
 
STL Mosaic Project
 
More about the Peace Light:
https://www.peacelightnorthamerica.org/