I have a favourite moment of the year. It's on Christmas Eve, during service, when the lights are dimmed and small white taper candles are passed around. There is usually hushed conversation and a murmur of anticipation; somewhere, children are using their candles to joust. Into the dark, someone sparks the first taper, and the flame is shared one at a time, from neighbour to neighbour, until the room takes on a quiet glow. Then, the people gathered sing Silent Night.

This is likely a familiar picture: traditions often are. I've experienced this moment in different contexts over the years: in my home church that no longer exists, and in the Baptist church my parents now attend. During the pandemic, I sang along with my small church community on a screen, each of us having lit a candle in our own apartments.

As far back as I can see, there I am on Christmas Eve, holding those words, that melody, and singing of God's goodness throughout time. And that chain goes further back—how many of my ancestors also sang it, people I never met? How many of yours? How many communities across the world have we joined with in celebrating the moment of Jesus's birth?

At a recent young adult conference, Caleb Maskell spoke about tradition as a passing of the baton between generations. God does something important with repetitive practices: He uses them as a shorthand for story, as a memory device, a thread connecting us back to an eternal narrative. For Jesus's earthly family, festivals and holy days like Passover and Shabbat reminded the people of the times God had rescued them and would do so again. As he taught his followers, Jesus transformed old traditions into new. "Do this in remembrance of me."

Traditions can be grounding. They invite us, for a moment, out of circumstance, and call us to turn our hearts to the God who holds us. They remind us who we've been, and that God is walking with us into who we will be. That He is faithful and steadfast. That we do not travel alone. That when a child was born in a stable two millennia ago, it was a defining moment in the story God was already telling. A story of compassion beyond measure. One that echoes now through the generations.

As I write this, my favourite moment of the year is fast approaching. There is a version of me ahead, experiencing it. There are iterations of me in the past, taking in breath, ready to sing the familiar words. There are communities across the world speaking shared hope into the darkness. Christ the saviour is born. Love's pure light has come!

And so even as we sing in separate places and contexts, may the comfort of God's presence find us. May we light the candles of community and turn our hearts towards the arriving, arisen Christ. In the face of everything that's been and everything to come, may we—in the soft and gentle assurance of the intervening God—glow.

Emily Davidson is a writer living in Vancouver, on the unceded ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Her creative work has appeared in literary magazines across the country, and her debut collection of poetry, Lift, was released in 2019. Emily is part of The Table Vineyard community.