Mark Your Calendar

The season of Advent is almost upon us and that means a new year is about to begin.  Now I’m not talking about New Year’s on January 1. No I’m talking about New Year’s on December 2.  I’m a month early you say?  Am I?  Really?

Well, I suppose the answer to that depends on which calendar you are following.  The secular calendar in the U.S. begins on January 1 with New Year’s Day and Ends on December 31 with New Year’s Eve.  In between those two dates lies a whole slew of other “holidays”, some more holy than others.  Beyond the individual holidays there are seasons of the calendar - seasons like Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  There is also what we have come to call the “holiday season,” beginning these days in October before Halloween and ending on New Year’s.  This is the calendar we all know, the calendar we grew up with, the calendar which unfortunately narrates our story and governs our lives.

Why that last comment?  I offer it because I want to suggest an alternative calendar to govern our lives; a calendar that narrates a different story.  Some of you already know it, and some of you don’t.  But even those who know it, including myself, have too often allowed the secular calendar to shape the narrative of our life and the way in which we approach everything we do, from our interactions at work, the way we spend our free time on the weekends, how we spend time with family, even to the way we worship. 

What is this new calendar you ask?  Well it isn’t something new.  In fact it has been around a long time.  It is the Christian Calendar, and I’m praying we’ll re-introduce it into our daily lives.  It is a calendar that stands at odds with the status quo, the principalities and powers.  It is a calendar that continually looks to Christ as the center upon which the seasons turn. It is a calendar which re-orients us from being of the world and servants to false gods and idols (insert whichever one you want), to being in the world serving our Lord God and King.  I’m not saying we totally ignore the secular calendar; that would be impossible and foolish.  I’m saying we engage the secular calendar while committing to live by the cycles of the Christian one.

What is the Christian Calendar?

So just what is the Christian Calendar?  The answer to that will depend on your tradition/denomination.  Eastern Orthodox churches have a slightly different calendar from churches in the West, just as Catholics have a slightly different calendar from Protestants.  Even Protestants will vary on what they recognize as a part of the yearly cycle.  For instance, many Protestant traditions will only celebrate Christmas and Easter - those two holidays and seasons comprising the entirety of the calendar they recognize outside of a secular one.  But in the West, the basic traditional calendar begins with Advent and includes the following seasons:

Advent Season
Christmas Season
Epiphany Season (or season after Epiphany)
Lenten Season
Easter Season
Season After Pentecost (Kingdomtide, Ordinary Time)

Within those seasons we find numerous Holy Days including:

Christmas Eve/Day
Epiphany
Baptism of the Lord
Transfiguration Sunday
Ash Wednesday
Palm Sunday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
Easter Sunday
Ascension
Pentecost
Trinity Sunday
Christ the King
All Saints Day

But the calendar is more than just seasons and Holy Days.  As I mentioned earlier it is an orientation - or rather it is a way for us to orient our lives, not on secular, national, commercial, or worldly pursuits, but on Christ and his mission to redeem all of creation.

I want to spend time over the next year exploring the calendar and I hope you’ll join me.  We’ll look at each of the seasons and Holy Days in turn as they approach.  We’ll delve into their origins, meanings, and the ways in which we continue to celebrate them today.  We’ll discuss the meanings of the various symbols and colors associated with each season, and ways in which we can incorporate the celebration of the calendar into the worship of God, whether in church or at home, or wherever we happened to be.

Before we go too much further I want to explore a little more about why we might follow the Christian calendar, whether the calendar is even biblical, and some of the aspects of the calendar all Christians share.  I’ll also mention a little bit about the lectionary and how it fits into the calendar.  So look for those in upcoming posts (even if they don't all come before Advent begins).

In the meantime I hope you’ll consider going on this journey with me.  You may just choose to follow the posts here, or you may decide to go a little deeper.  Whatever you choose I pray the Spirit would encourage and guide you.  I’m going to attempt to use a devotional guide related to the calendar this year entitled Living The Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, by Bobby Gross.*  I have no idea if it is any good (I haven’t read it so I can’t recommend it yet) and I don’t know if I will finish it (I’ve never been much of the devotional type), but I’m going to give it a shot.

 

*Bobby Gross, Living The Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).