LIVING THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
The Kingdom of God re-orders everything, even (perhaps especially) the way we view time. Rather than being first ordered by a calendar, the Christian year is ordered by a Story, God’s story in Jesus Christ (the gospel). The Christian Year follows this yearly cycle, as we actually live into Jesus’ story of hope and redemption.
We are currently in the season of Ordinary Time.
THE LITURGICAL YEAR
Advent
Our story commences with four weeks looking forward with anticipation toward the celebration of Jesus’ birth, the fulfillment of Israel’s hope and the fulcrum for all of God’s promises for the world. In Advent, we look backward at the fact that Jesus has come for us once and watch forward, eager for Jesus to come for us again (the second advent).
Christmastide
The 12 days of Christmas, where we walk through Jesus’ Incarnation.
Epiphany
The “striking appearance” (epiphany) of God begins (for Western Christians) with the story of Jesus’ presentation to the magi and (for Eastern Christians) with the story of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. Epiphany marks Jesus’ mission of moving into the world and of making himself known. This is also the first stretch of Ordinary Time, where we remember all Jesus’ works and words.
Lent
Beginning with Ash Wednesday and climaxing in Holy Week, Lent is a time of preparation and repentance, as we look toward the dark hope Jesus endured through his cross and resurrection. Lent is 40 days (the number of days Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness and one day for each year Israel wandered in the desert), but does not include Sundays (because every Sunday is a feast day, a day for celebrating Resurrection).
Easter
The epicenter of our Story, the moment toward which our entire life points. Easter is a 50-day season of feasting and joy.
Ordinary Time
Beginning with Trinity Sunday, this longest season of the church year invites us to live out both the ordinariness and the power of Christian faith.
“The weekend, as we’ve transitioned to practice it (with the slight shift of seeing Monday, rather than Sunday, as the first day of the week), is problematic because it orders our life around that which now defines us: work. No longer is Sabbath, God’s creative and sustaining work, at the center – but now our work is at the center. When you change the calendar, you’ve really changed something.”
Recommended Reading
Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, Bobby Gross
The Liturgical Year: The Spirling Adventre of the Spiritual Life, Joan Chittister
Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year by Malcolm Guite
Ancient Future Time: Forming Spirituality Through the Christian Year by Robert Webber
WHY MARK TIME WITH THE CHURCH YEAR?
It enables us to live in God’s Story. Church Year spirituality forms Christian people around the story of redemption in Christ. It does not focus on “principles” or “steps” or “programs” for spiritual growth. It is thoroughly Jesus-shaped and uses the biblical story to conform our lives to his. As Israel was shaped by their story of slavery, redemption, covenant, and Promised Land, so the New Israel is formed by the story of Messiah.
It keeps the main thing the main thing. Church Year spirituality is Christ-centered. It is shaped around the events of his incarnation, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and the outpouring of his Spirit. At every turn we see Jesus, we hear Jesus, we follow Jesus.
It recognizes that one’s calendar forms one’s life. Church Year Spirituality is down-to-earth, utterly realistic about the day to day, season to season patterns of life that shape our behavior. All our lives we have developed habits by the way we mark and use our time. A spirituality formed around the Church Year is designed to form our habits around following Jesus. We take the place of disciples, and walk through the same experiences they had as they lived with Jesus day in and day out, season after season, over the course of three years.
It links personal spirituality with worship, family, and community. Church Year Spirituality recognizes both the individual journey and the corporate pilgrimage. What happens on Sundays is of a piece with what happens during the week as our corporate worship and our daily lives as individuals and families are shaped around the story of Jesus.
It provides a basis of unity and common experience for Christians everywhere. Our unity with other Christians is in the Gospel story. This is summarized in the Apostles’ Creed and the other creeds of the church. Propositional doctrinal statements have their place as ways to express more detailed understandings of the meaning and significance of God’s saving acts, but our unity with other believers is in Christ. We celebrate this throughout the year when churches of various traditions and denominations celebrate the Church Year and conform their worship and congregational lives to it.