“We Light the Candle”
Mark Alan Filbert, Hymnology Consultant2024-09-26T15:40:09-04:00This month we continue our Hymn of the Month series in which one or more hymns drawn from collections published by The Leupold Foundation will be posted on the opening page of the website for consideration by pastors and musicians who may wish to introduce the hymn to their congregations the following month. The Hymn of the Month will often be thematically appropriate for a particular season of the church year or it may be related to a more general theme about the church’s mission in contemporary society. Thus, pastors and/or musicians may wish to have the choir introduce the hymn on the first Sunday of the month or season and then invite the congregation to join with the choir in singing the hymn on each of the remaining Sundays. Additional hymns will occasionally be suggested for a particular Sunday in the church year or for annual commemorations, such as the liturgies of Holy Week; such hymns may only be appropriate on the designated day, or they might be used as a Hymn of the Month in anticipation of or in response to the particular day observed on the church calendar.
HYMN OF THE MONTH FOR DECEMBER 2024:
Text: “We Light the Candle,” Mary Nelson Keithahn, – Tune: MARANATHA, John D. Horman, Faith that Lets Us Sing, p. 81.


As we begin a new church year, the Hymn of the Month might more aptly be called a Hymn of the Season for Advent. The Hymn for Advent in 2024 is “We Light the Candle“, with a delightful text by Mary Nelson Keithahn (b. 1934) and a jaunty tune by John D. Horman (b. 1946). Actually intended to accompany the lighting of the Advent wreath, the text includes one stanza for each of the four Sundays in Advent as well as a fifth for those congregations whose Advent wreath includes a Christ candle in the center to be lit on Christmas Eve/Day. While each of the first four stanzas could be reserved for their corresponding Sunday in Advent, with the final stanza sung on Christmas Eve, the stanzas could also be sung in a cumulative manner by adding a stanza each Sunday just as more Advent candles are lit on successive Sundays. The latter approach would definitely increase congregational familiarity with the hymn, the first stanza of which could be introduced by a children’s choir or soloist on Advent 1 and sung that way on subsequent Sundays as the congregation joins in on a new stanza each week. Thus, by Christmas Eve when all five stanzas are sung, the hymn would be well familiar to the congregation. The hymn could also work equally well in congregations whose wreaths do not feature a Christ candle by utilizing only the first four stanzas.
Mary Nelson Keithahn is a United Church of Christ pastor and educator, now retired in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she still works out of her home as a freelance writer, lyricist, and hymn writer. John D. Horman is a composer, clinician, and former public school music teacher who serves as organist and director of music at First Congregational Church (UCC) in Washington, DC, and has over 250 published anthems to his credit. Collaborators for over thirty years, Keithahn and Horman have written over a hundred hymns together, half of which appear in Faith that Lets Us Sing: Fifty New Hymns and Short Worship Songs,
published in 2017 by The Leupold Foundation.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.