H/T to Di
Even thought the following story may not be true, it is still a beautiful way of viewing the candy cane. And, in the spirit of Christmas I would like to share it:
Many years ago, a candy maker in Indiana had an idea to show through the candy he made, that Jesus Christ was born among us, lived and died to save us all.
So he created the candy cane. He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy. White to symbolize the Virgin Birth and the sinless nature of Jesus; hard to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church, and the firmness of the promises of God. The candy maker made the candy in the form of a "J" to represent the precious name of Jesus, who came to earth as our Savior. It could also represent the shepherd's staff, reminding us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.
2 comments:
This is an urban legend.
They probably were first made in Europe without the stripes and used as decorations. The whole Indiana thing with deliberate symbolism is pure myth. A nice myth and one I see pretty much every year on the blogs.
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/candycane.asp
There are several Catholic websites that mention this story. Even Snopes says that a church made them bent to represent a shepherd's crook and to give as treats to children. So, while it is likely that the whole story may not be correct, this article has a great comment about that: that we can appropriate it however we want and so in any case see that meaning of Jesus in the crook of the candy cane. http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1624
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