Guest Post from Jeff Rudy on the Church Calendar

I really appreciate Aaron's invitation in responding to his heartfelt and honest post on adherence to the church year/calendar...admitting its limitations (or at least our appropriating of it). I also look forward to the several other voices who are much more able than I am in elaborating on this issue.

With that, here are two (or three) of my cents:

I enjoy a pattern that takes you through a variety of seasons. Joe Dongell (ATS Professor) envisions utopia not as 70 degrees, cool breeze, on a beach, etc… but instead a livelihood that enjoys the beauty of a variety of temperatures and conditions. (Maybe we can avoid tornadoes & hurricanes though). Seasons like Lent, Advent, Epiphany, Eastertide, Pentecost, and so on, remind me of the Ecclesiastes 3 passage that there is a time for everything. It helps me to weep with those who weep (Jesus wept during the season where we observe Lent), rejoice with those who rejoice (can you avoid shouting HALLELUJAH! upon the news of Jesus being raised from the dead?), and so on.

On the other hand, there are events that call for us to grieve during a season of rejoicing and events that should evoke rejoicing during a season that calls us to solemnity. I recall a Roman Catholic worship leader visiting ATS who had written a song that we sung in chapel. It was during the Lenten season and according to his tradition they fast from using the term ‘Hallelujah’ during that season to make the 'Hallelujah' cry that much more robust on Resurrection morning. The thing was that his song had the lyric ‘Hallelujah.’ He asked if we would gracefully use ‘Hosanna’ in place of it when that word appeared on the screen/in the hymn. The crowd did as he asked. It seems, then, that even when a season is devoted to a particular spirit/mentality, there ought to be provision to accommodate an alternate exclamation that doesn’t seem to jive with the season. Don’t the seasons even admit that? It seems as though they all fit within an ‘Already/Not Yet’ kingdom vision. Some focus on the ‘Already’ (e.g., Eastertide, Pentecost) while others focus on the ‘Not Yet’ (e.g., Advent, Lent), but never to such a degree that the other is completely ignored. It can’t be (so long as we live in this reality). Does that make sense?

I’ve not kept faithfully to it as much as I have wanted to, but on occasion I have read the Ancient Christian Devotional, which is patterned according to the seasons of the Church with Scripture readings and quotations from the Church Fathers on the passages. I like that reading Scripture with (a large majority) of Christians across the world unites us together in a mystical way. And the Lord and the world knows that we Christians could use a good deal more unity.

Peace! He is Risen!