One question occasionally asked is why does the church celebrate the seasons of the church year? These seasons are Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time. God gave the rhythm of the seasons, times for a specific purpose, in order for us to remember God’s story of salvation through out the year. In advent, the beginning of the church year, we remember the hope we have in Christ’s coming and this causes us to look forward to Christ’s return. Christmas is celebrating the first coming of our Lord, the birth of Christ. Epiphany is a day and season when we remember God’s manifestation, or showing, through symbols of a star, light, and The Lord’s Baptism. Lent is a season in which we practice spiritual discipline and preparation beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Holy Week, when we celebrate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Lent is a time for reflection and repentance, so that we may know the great gift given to us in the death and resurrection of Christ. Easter is the day and season when we rejoice at the Good News of our Lord’s Resurrection. Easter is our victory day when we celebrate the defeat of death and sin once and for all. The season of Easter continues to the Day of Pentecost where we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Church. The long season of Ordinary Time is the season of growing where we focus on our discipleship. The seasons in the church provide time to remember God’s story of grace, love, and empowerment to all of humanity. The season’s rhythms provide us order and influence in our devotional and worship life of the church.
The season we celebrate soon is not Christmas but Advent, with Christmas to celebrate next. The season of Advent helps us prepare for the big event of Christmas. One of the practices of Advent is lighting the Advent candles in worship with many families also doing this practice at home. The candles represent an aspect of our faith in Jesus Christ that aids us in our waiting for Christ’s return. This year the candles will represent hope, peace, joy, and love. Remembering these aspects of our faith in Jesus Christ helps us to wait patiently and expectantly for his return, and helps us to celebrate with renewed faith the great gift given to us in the babe of the manger on Christmas.
We do not know when Jesus will return, but we do know that he will return. During the season of Advent, the season that emphasizes waiting expectantly, the scriptures focus on how the people of God waited in the past and how God was faithful to them in their waiting, how God fulfilled promises from long ago, and encourages to wait for the fulfillment of all time when Christ’s return.
This season seems out of sorts with our culture, since we begin thinking and celebrating Christmas, Nov. 1, the day after Halloween. We as a culture do not like to wait. We are impatient, and fail to see waiting as a discipline of faith. We usually encounter waiting as a waste of time, and a pain in the neck. The tension is felt when we hear and sing Christmas Carols in November, and when December hits we want to sing them in church as well. If we look at our culture calendar, motivated by how many shopping days before Christmas, we have been in the season of Christmas for almost two full months. However, in the church calendar the season of Advent has just begun.
You will notice that as each Sunday in December gets closer to Christmas we sing and hear more Christmas music in worship adding to the anticipation of Christ’s first coming, his birth, and of his someday return. I invite all of us during this season of waiting, Advent, which means coming, to be busy in waiting activities: practice a devotional life privately and in groups of family and friends; come to worship; come to the sanctuary decoration party after worship on Dec. 1; come to the healing service on Dec. 1 at 7:30 pm.; come to the choir concert Dec. 15 at 7:30 pm; and then come to the Christmas Eve Worship at 7:30 pm. I pray in all these faithful waiting practices you will discover the richness of this season, Advent, and Christmas that God has given to us.
Shalom,
Pastor
Carol Kirkpatrick