Why the Christian Seasons?

The seasons of the Christian Year - Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost - give shape and form to our corporate worship.  The early church had largely established the seasonal celebrations by the fourth century and the Roman Catholic Church reconfirmed this ancient calendar in 1969, followed by many Protestant churches (see "How the Christian Calendar Came To Be" for more).

Jesus is the Reason

The rhythm of the seasons and the gifts and insights each can offer lend a structure to our worship that helps to keep the church pointing towards its Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Christ.

The center and focus of the calendar is Christ (who has died, is risen and who will come again) and the story of the calendar, which is Christ's story, is a yearly reminder of who and whose we are.  The Christian calendar can also, therefore, be correction for both our fallen human tendencies to self-interest (narcissism) and to forgetfulness.  These are corporate failings as much as they are individual ones as a reading of the biblical text or a venture into church history will quickly demonstrate!

A Political Activity

Rabbi S.R. Hirsch once said that "the Jewish calendar is the Jewish catechism." The same can be said of the Christian calendar - the Christian calendar is the Christian catechism (catechism, though historically having a narrow definition, is here understood as everything the church does [and does not do], which is itself how the church trains disciples).  As Rev. Dr. Ed Searcy states in Keeping Time, "The use of the ancient seasons of the Christian Year is a political activity [my emphasis].  It intends to form an alternate "polis" - people - whose time is ordered by the coming of Jesus, the calling of a salty people and the promise of God to redeem the creation."  The formation of this people - the church - is not an end in itself.  Always, this people are a people in service - to Jesus, our risen and ruling Saviour, and in and for the world - as a sign and foretaste of God's redeeming love.

A Practice for All

It should be clear at this point then that the marking of time by the Christian calendar in our gathered worship and in our homes is an undertaking of the whole people of God.  It is by nature and our need, intergenerational.  The Christian identity of people of all ages already within the church can be nurtured by this way of marking time.  It can also be particularly helpful for new disciples in nurturing their re-formation into the Way of Christ.

Setting Our Hope in God

Having said the above about the intergenerational nature of the Christian calendar, at this point it is good to note the special importance of marking time by the Christian seasons for children.

Children come into the world living purely in the present - their sense of both the past and the future is shaped in large part by how we mark time (daily, weekly, seasonally, yearly).  "The story that is told about our past and our future becomes the underlying narrative of our identity." (Keeping Time)  One of the wonderful things about keeping time in this way with children is that it meets them right where they are, in the present.  As Dorthoy C. Bass writes in Receiving the Day, "In a single turning the Christian year carries the content of Christian faith into present time, inviting us to experience the here-and-now in relation to a story that began before creation and continues into a future that is already dawning." (p87) The Christian year is an excellent way of telling "to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD" as Psalm 78 instructs (verse 4) "that they should set their hope in God" (verse 7).