Advent - Beginning the Discipleship Year
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Growing up I often had a feeling that something was missing from my personal worship. That feeling was most pronounced around “religious” holidays. I would long for a way to make holidays like Christmas and Easter into special seasons of worship. I was too immature in my faith to create it for myself, so I would just ride the wave of culture leading up to Christmas and Easter and wonder why I felt deflated after the day had gone by.
Enter the church (or liturgical) calendar.
When I was first introduced to the seasons of the church calendar it was like a lightbulb came on in a dim hallway that I had been trying to feel my way through for years. It seemed, to me, like maybe Protestants had thrown out the proverbial “baby with the bathwater”.
In a church such as ours, coming from all backgrounds and worship styles, we can be sure that there are many opinions on the use of the church calendar. Some of us may have never even heard of it, while others grew up with it and found it monotonous or even oppressive.
In some traditions it can be a means of oppression causing people to feel as if not observing certain seasons in certain ways means their faith is weak and they are in the wrong. This oppression is why after the Protestant Reformation most Protestant churches jettisoned every tradition affiliated with the Catholic Church, such as Lent, Advent, and Ordinary Time.
“Advent”, as a season, is not in the Bible. So it is not strictly “biblical”. And yes, there are verses, such as Galatians 4:8-11, that lead us to believe, if taken out of context, that observing anything from “tradition” should be avoided.
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.”
Verses such as these were talking about strict Jewish festivals and laws that were compulsory to observe. This was religious legalistic oppression and it was a crushing weight that suffocated joy. The gospel of Jesus Christ had liberated them from this oppression and Paul was reminding them that they were voluntarily stepping back into chains when they had been given freedom.
This isn’t what we're speaking of at all.
We're speaking of using the church calendar as a means of discipleship. The point of the church calendar is to live your life in a yearly cycle of remembering the birth, death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. What better way to live life as a believer?
Every year “begins'' with a season of anticipation that the Messiah is stepping into our physical world—Advent. Then, we celebrate that He has come! Not just with one day, but with 12 days of celebrations. When the 12 days are finished, we observe Epiphany where we look to the wise men and not only worship the Messiah, but celebrate that He has come not just for the Jewish people but for all people.
The season of Epiphany ends on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Did you know that the ashes used in the service to remind us “from dust we came and to dust we will return” come from the burning of the palm fronds used on Easter? These are the same fronds that were used to herald the Messiah being led in a procession of praise into Jerusalem - the procession that turned quickly from praise to protest.
Let the symbolism of that sink in for a minute.
This leads us into a time of repentance, prayer, and fasting as we prepare our hearts for the events of Easter. This is Lent.
And Easter? It’s not just one day, it’s fifty! Fifty days of celebrating that our messiah has come into the world to save us from our sins. Fifty days of sitting in front of the empty tomb. The celebration is only ended in order to celebrate something equally as beautiful - Pentecost.
Fifty days after Eastertide (the season of Easter) is Pentecost. Pentecost is a single joyful feast day, called the "great Lord's Day", where we bask in the glow of the Holy Spirit being given to us. And in the power of the Holy Spirit, we move into a time of living our daily life (Ordinary Time) in step with the Spirit until the cycle begins again.
Do you see the beauty of it? Do you see the sacred rhythm? This is discipleship ingrained in the calendar, year by year by year. Imagine living your life in a yearly cycle always focused on Jesus!
In good years and bad, we live The Story.
In times of plenty and in times of want, we live The Story.
We don’t need the Church calendar to live this story. It’s a man-made tool, nothing divine. But sometimes we need tools to help guide us, and that’s what the calendar is there for.
It’s not a biblical mandate. It’s not a commandment or law. It’s a discipleship tool, and discipleship IS mandated. You cannot be a follower of Christ without also being a disciple of Christ.
If this isn’t the tool for you that's totally fine, but find one that is. Find a tool that isn’t dependent upon your mood or the creativity of your church. A discipleship tool that will carry you through every season of life and into eternity.
The pressure is off. We don’t have to be innovative. Churches don’t have to “crush” the Christmas story every year by doing something more spectacular than we did last year. We simply step into the stream and let the current of the calendar carry us through every season. In submitting to this sacred rhythm we find peace and purpose.
Personally, I’ve been in need of the seasons. In need of this tool; this gift. In need of anything to help me put one foot in front of the other in my life with Jesus.
You can join us in stepping out of the chaos and into the stream of the Church calendar. Let the current carry you along. Surrender to the stream and sense the momentum that is thousands of years in the making.
