If you promoted the use of candles in worship as an Advent service idea, some people might get quite upset. Back in the 19th century, a little thing called the “Oxford Movement” was going on, where the Church of England / the Anglican Communion worldwide began to go back to more ‘Catholic’ or Traditional modes of spirituality. Candles was a common one that the more Reformed folks did not appreciate.
In England there John Kensit began the “Protestant Truth Society” (who still exist) which riled men to attack high-church worshippers (in one case I read of, they broke up an Anglican service by a mob with one man hitting people with a lead pipe). In South Africa, the Dutch Afrikaners attacked churches that used candles and stripped altars as their Calvinist ancestors had as well.
(Such people, like the Patristic Church in Jerusalem, worried about Christians falling into idolatry. However, consciously or unconsciously, it seems the Reformed have slipped into Luther’s understanding of the First/Second commandment, wherein an idol is made not with wood or stone, but with the heart. So candlemakers go on, even presumably, Presbyterian ones.)
In any case, candles have always been significant pieces for Advent worship in the East and West. Newly baptized converts were given baptismal candles which were to represent the light of Christ they’d received. At midnight mass, whole congregations would have candle-lit processions, recalling their own enlightenment by God’s Spirit, and evoking an image of the God who leads his people in a pillar of fire. Four candles have traditionally been lit on the weeks leading up to Advent as well, symbolizing the increasing light of Christ as his coming draws near.
Jesus said of himself that he was the light of the world, and when Roman Christians were burned alive, allegedly Nero used to mock them saying “now you really are the light of the world”. Hanakkuh which the Jews celebrated at the same time as Christmas, is also the festival of lights recorded in the deuterocanonical scripture (2 Maccabees 1:18), where God miraculously kept the light in the Temple going, as he aided the Jews in destroying the Pagan invaders.
Pastorally, one is always reminded that no matter how the fight goes, or how dreadful things seem, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Light which enlightens every man, given us by the Father of Lights himself. God’s word is a light unto our path, and may it be such for you in any season, whether or not it’s Advent.