Guest Post from Jon Powers on the Church Year

Thoughts on the Liturgical Calendar

Humans certainly have a preoccupation (or perhaps obsession is a better word) with time. We use strange phrases such as have time, make time, kill time, time flies, time creeps, or say that time is on our side. Many of us are paid according to time. At some point all of us have had to pay someone else because of their time. Countless songs and poems have been written trying to understand time. Needless to repeat, we are certainly preoccupied with time. (To make the point in another manner, right now, sitting at my desk, I can see six different devices designed to remind me of the time.)
When it comes to the church, Christianity also takes time seriously. Christians have no knowledge of God without time, for God has revealed himself through historical events. Christianity does not take a general stance on salvation, but it instead claims specific actions of God at definite times and places. The centrality of time is thus reflected in Christian worship. Worship, like the rest of life, is structured on recurring rhythms of the day, week, and year. Instead of attempting to transcend time, the church brings eternity into a present reality. The present becomes an encounter of God’s acts in the past and future. In particular, the church sets this rhythm through the structuring of a church calendar, enabling us to commemorate and re-experience the acts on which salvation is grounded.
Historically, the early church marked certain events in the story of salvation as important by setting aside specific seasons to focus on each. While nothing in scripture commanded them to do this, the calendar became a way of remembering and anticipating God’s plan of salvation. By annually retracing this story of salvation, the church continued to be catechized in its faith. Certain practices and disciplines were incorporated in order to help the church live more fully into that faith.
In his book, Between Memory and Hope, Maxwell Johnson writes, “...contrary to popular belief, the liturgical year is neither a kind of Hellenistic mystery religion’s reenactment of the life of Jesus nor an annual recurring cyclic meditation to the historical life of Jesus. Rather, through fast and feast, through festival and participation, the liturgical year celebrates the Presence of the already crucified and risen Christ among us as we remember what he did in history, as we encounter his Presence among us now, and as we await his coming again in glory.”
My whole life I have been in churches that observe the church calendar. However, most of my life I have had little understanding of how I live into the calendar and what it means for my Christian life. The element of remembrance was there, but there was no sense of current realities experienced through observing the calendar. Likewise, I was never shown the hope it offers in future expectation of God’s fulfillment of salvation. In other words, the church calendar was nothing more than a marker to annual events coinciding with certain practices because, well, it’s just what you do during that time of year. Kind of like raking leaves in the fall – you light candles during Advent.
Only recently have I begun to understand the liturgical calendar as a continual formation of my faith through patterns of feasting and fasting, discipline and celebration. The reasons are numerous for why the liturgical calendar has become important to me. However, in order to keep this post short(er), and since I know many other voices will be weighing in on this discussion, I will only focus on a couple:

1.) The liturgical calendar helps me maintain a disciplined pattern of life

While in college, I once sat in on a seminar discussing the topic of time management. The speaker began his presentation by saying, “If you want to know what is most important in your life, look at where you spend the most time.” Perhaps not everyone will agree with this statement, but I do think the speaker raises something to consider. The time I spend at work or reading and writing for school may or may not be my favorite thing to do, but that time is important to my success. Likewise, if something important in my life is not getting proper time allotment, say my family, then I fight to organize my time appropriately.
The church shows what it important to its life by the way it organizes time. The liturgical calendar shapes and forms time, bound to the conviction that God and human history are continually intertwined. The New Handbook of the Christian Year states, “…the use of time reveals priorities of faith and practice.” Specifically, the Christian church has structured the liturgical calendar for the purpose of keeping alive the memories of the Gospel message. For instance, for Christians, Easter is an annual event and celebration just as much as it is an essential part of the Gospel narrative.
The world does not set forth for me disciplined patterns of life. So many things vie for my attention in the world and fight to find adequate space in my life. However, at any moment of the year, through the liturgical calendar, the church proclaims the Gospel narrative and reminds me of what is most important. It structures time for me, so I may enter a walk through the year with Jesus Christ. It keeps me in a cycle of remembrance and hope through fasting and feasting. It establishes a rhythm of anticipation (Advent), joy (Christmas), wonder (Epiphany), penitence (Lent), celebration (Easter), and mission (Pentecost). It forms the church’s worship and daily devotion.

2.) The liturgical calendar serves as an ongoing catechism

One of the beautiful things about the liturgical calendar is that it not only teaches me the Gospel story, but it also helps me live into the faith I proclaim. This should be the nature of any church catechism.
It is interesting that in John and Charles Wesley’s development of the Methodist hymnbook, there were certain goals they set forth for the collection: 1) That the hymnbook provided an account of Christianity from conversion to incorporation with the fellowship of believers; 2) That the collection would be used as a daily devotional guide as much as a book in worship; 3) That the hymnbook gave churches a liturgy to sing, especially for the Eucharist; 4) That the collection led people through the Christian calendar. These various aspects were not held as exclusive goals from one another. Instead, the Wesleys understood how the church calendar serves as a natural catechism, so the hymnbook accomplished all these goals through that structuring principle. The liturgical calendar provided the content for a liturgical catechesis.
In my own life, worship practice continues to affirm the story of salvation through the liturgical calendar. This goes beyond typical remembrances of Christmas and Easter, which can often be more culturally than biblically formed. Seasons such as Advent, Lent, and Pentecost tell me more of the story – the story of Israel, the story of Jesus’ ministry, the story of the church… Furthermore, by entering into these seasons with a community of gathered believers, we seek out the ways this story calls us to live in the world today. It shapes our practice. It calls us not only to think our way into a new kind of living, but also to live into a new kind of thinking. For instance, Lent calls me to think about discipline, so I fast. Yet, as I take on the spiritual discipline of fasting, I find myself thinking about other ways I need simplicity in life and begin to make those sacrifices. True transformation sees this as an ongoing process. However, I may falter and slip away from certain disciplines or mindsets. But Lent comes around again the next year, and I am reminded once again of simplicity and discipline. And between those two seasons of Lent, I have been reminded of hope and anticipation, of celebration of freedom, and been encouraged to go out in mission as part of God’s church living by God’s Spirit.
As long as I live this life, I have a feeling this catechism will never end. But I am blessed because the liturgical calendar will always be there to help inform and form me in the likeness of Christ.