The Christmas spirit was alive last Saturday in a local church as members from four congregations gathered to share the Bethlehem Peace Light and take it back to their own fellowships the following day. The tradition — which is just catching on in the Southeast — began in 1986 in Austria as a charitable relief mission.
Hope Lutheran Church of Ellijay hosted the brief ceremony where pastors and parisioners from local Good Samaritan Catholic and First United Methodist, King of Kings Lutheran (Jasper) and Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran (Morganton) churches took part. This year, the peace light traveled from Bethlehem to New York City to Marietta, then to Big Canoe in Jasper and on to Ellijay.
Bob Hussian, a member of Good Samaritan and the Knights of Columbus, said their congregation “feels very positively about it.”
“The deacon explained how it came across (the Atlantic Ocean) to New York,” he said of last Sunday’s service. “A lot of credit should be given to (Hope Lutheran pastor) David Smedley. With the decline in church attendance all over the world, we should all stick together and cooperate.”
After a time of fellowship in the Hope Lutheran narthex with refreshments and fellowship, the group of more than a dozen invoked the Prayer of Saint Francis and sang ‘This Little Light of Mine.”
Smedley told the group it was “nerve-wracking” hoping the flame wouldn’t go out while driving in his car after he and his wife had it transferred from Cub Scout Pack 20 and Boy Scout Troop 20 of Big Canoe.
“If you’re taking the flame home and it goes out, you can come back here and light it again,” he said of the church’s eternal flame system.
Smedley also shared that some Canadian Boy Scouts first brought the flame to New York City just after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and “it’s been coming back every year.”
On websites (see box), there is an online map showing the different places where the flame has been taken, with very few in the Southeast.
“But north Georgia’s going to be on fire here soon,” Smedley said of desiring more area churches to get involved. Later, he was asked about the giving and sharing spirit of the peace light ceremony.
“We’ve tried to collaborate with the Catholics and the Methodist churches here in town, and tried to foster a nice relationship among us all,” he said. “Every year during Lent, the Catholics have a fish fry. So we get about 10 or 15 or 20 of us from the Lutheran church to go up there, and we’ve let each other know what’s going on with our churches.
“We had the Fourth of July thing (food sales in Good Samaritan’s parking lot downtown) together to help the food pantry. That was so cool. So I think it’s just a real desire on the part of the congregations in this community to work together. Something that’s really fostered that is the food pantry that was put together 20 years ago — not just a single church that was running it, but a community of churches working together in unity. Kids Ferst (reading program) is another example.”
Jack Planchard, also a member of the Knights of Columbus, said the folks at Good Samaritan Catholic Church were “so honored to receive a call from our good friend, Pastor David Smedley, offering to share this wonderful Christmas gift of the Peace Light of Bethlehem.”
“It is yet another heartwarming example of the burgeoning ecumenical spirit among the Christian churches here in our community,” he said. “It has given us an opportunity to celebrate with many of the brothers and sisters of our broader Christian faith community, and share those things that we all hold dear and share in common.”
The Rev. Alan Tarr retired assistant pastor of First United Methodist, who attended the service with senior pastor the Rev. Thom Shores, related he was in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in September, and the sharing of the peace light there was “particularly meaningful.”
“We had dinner in the home of a Palestinian Christian family while there and spoke of peace, the real peace Christ offers — himself,” he said. “I’m going to take the Peace Light flame down to Dunwoody on Christmas Eve, where our daughter and son-in-law serve and worship at Dunwoody Baptist Church.”
A news release notes the peace light journey begins in Austria each year when Boy Scouts there travel to the site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem to harvest the flame from the eternal torch, and carry it back home.
“There, they hold a Service of Dedication and then disperse the light to delegations from across Europe who take it back with a Message of Peace to their own countries for use at services throughout the continent,” the release states. “Since that time, it has been dispersed to congregations and to any who would like to share in its blessing throughout the North American continent.”
This year, the flame arrived at JFK Airport in New York City in early December and then traveled to a church in Marietta before being brought to Big Canoe Chapel in Jasper by the Scouts under the guidance of their leaders, Tony Miller and Jeff Dodson. In the narthex at Hope Lutheran before the ceremony, one attendee noted his research found that Israeli and Palestinian Boy Scouts work together to carry the Bethlehem Peace Light forward to the world.
Planchard expressed the feelings of all present when he exclaimed, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Peace Light!”
Bethlehem Peace Light 2020
Hope Lutheran Church – https://www.elca-ses.org/congregationdetail/1773252 or on Facebook at Hope Luthern Church, Ellijay, Ga. Phone: 706-636-4673
History of the Peace Light
Each year, a child from Upper Austria fetches the light from the grotto in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. The light is carried in two blast proof miners’ lamps on an Austrian Airlines jet from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Vienna, Austria, where it is distributed at a Service of Dedication to delegations from across Europe who take it back, with a message of peace, to their own countries. Austrian Airlines then flies the miners’ lamps containing the Peace Light from Bethlehem to New York City.
Source: www.peacelight.org/history/default.html