Celebrating Advent {The lighting of the candles}

It has become a tradition in our family to light the candles on the Advent wreath each Christmas season. There are five weeks of Advent, and each week we light a new candle. We like to light them at dinner, while we sit around the table. As we are eating, we talk about what the week's candle means, and I share the Bible verse for that candle.

Sharing this on my blog has also become a tradition, first on my previous blog, and now here at Beautiful Nest. I hope you enjoy lighting the candle with us each week! 

{It is true I am one week behind schedule, for last weekend I was unable to post due to our home renovation! So hopefully you will not mind us lighting two candles tonight! I am also late in putting our Advent wreath together, so we are using simple candles for the first two candles this week! Next week, I will have our Advent wreath ready!}

The First Candle of Advent: The Prophecy Candle

"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
~ Isaiah 9:6

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee,
O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring,
come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
And fill the world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Amen.

The Second Candle of Advent: The Bethlehem Candle

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Isreal, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

~Micah 5:2

The Bethlehem Candle is one of my personal favorites...Why? Because out of all the places for the King of creation to be born, God chose a small, seemingly unimportant town. Inside this town was a typical stable, and this is where Jesus Christ was born.


Imagine that! The Son of God, the King of kings, born in an everyday barn! And yet, in fact, everything God does here seems to fly right in the face of convention, or at least our ideas of what should be. An ordinary young girl wraps her firstborn son in pieces of cloth and places Him in a feeding trough...Common, lowly shepherds in a field witness angels in the sky, chosen by God to be the baby Jesus' first visitors...

It is the story we have heard so many times, so often it can too easily lose its extraordinary meaning.

I just love how, over and over again, God does the unexpected!  


O Little Town of Bethlehem

O Little Town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
Amen.

{I hope you all have a good night, and a beautiful Monday!} 


Blessings,
Jenni