Being a liturgical church, first-time guests sometimes run into things that require explanation.  On the most basic level, there are usually questions about the mechanics of worship:  Why do you read prayers in unison?  Why is the pastor in a robe?  But if you stick with us longer than one Sunday, then the questions turn to the ordering not simply of the service but of time itself:  that is, the ordering of the calendar. (For more about our worship, please take a look at this helpful booklet.)

Shaping Reality

The way we track time shapes our view of reality. The calendars we follow define what matters to us. Truthfully, we all use more than one calendar. We’re all influenced to some extent by the civil calendar, which includes the twelve months and national holidays like New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. The civil calendar starts on January 1 and ends on December 31.

Students, parents, and teachers follow the academic calendar, starting in late August (though it seems to start earlier every year) and ending in late May or early June. Family vacations and dental appointments must be planned around the academic calendar.

Many businesses use their own fiscal year for planning. There are also other calendars, like the “Hallmark calendar,” which includes holidays mostly promoted by the greeting card and florist industries, such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. These holidays also help organize our lives.

Sacred Sense of Time

In the Hebrew Bible, God wanted Israel to mark time differently from other nations, so He gave them special feasts or holy days to celebrate His acts of Redemption. Most of us know Passover (Pesach), a spring feast celebrating the Exodus. Another spring feast is Shavuot (the “Feast of Weeks”) or Pentecost in Greek, celebrating the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. In the fall, there are the High Holy Days: Rosh Hashanah (the “Feast of Trumpets” or New Year), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (the “Feast of Tabernacles” or Booths).

These holy days, including Purim (celebrating Queen Esther saving the Jewish people) and Chanukah (celebrating the Temple’s rededication by Judah Maccabee), shaped the lives of God’s people. They continue to do so in the Jewish community today. Celebrating these feasts and marking time this way is a crucial part of Jewish life.

The Spring Cycle

In the early church, the first Christians followed a tradition of marking time differently from the surrounding nations. They adopted the spring feast of Passover—Pesach in Hebrew, Pascha in Greek—and reinterpreted it to celebrate the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, seen as the Paschal Lamb slain for the world’s sins. In English, we call it Easter, but in many other cultures, the feast’s name is still a variation of Passover: Pâques in French, Pasqua in Italian, Pascua in Spanish, and so on.

Soon, a Christian celebration of Pentecost (Shavuot) joined the Easter celebration (Pascha), marking the Holy Spirit’s descent on the Apostles and the baptism of over 3,000 converts as described in the book of Acts. The forty-day preparation period for Pascha, known as Lent (from an old word for “spring”), leads up to Holy Week. Holy Week revisits Christ’s final days on earth, including the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday), the Last Supper and Gethsemane (Maundy Thursday), and the Crucifixion (Good Friday).

The Winter Cycle

The grouping of winter feasts in the Church Year developed similarly to the spring feasts. In the spring, there’s a preparation season (Lent, 40 days), a celebration season (Easter season, 50 days from Easter to Pentecost), and a reflection season (Sundays after Pentecost, also called “Ordinary Time”). The winter cycle also has a preparation season (Advent), a celebration season (Christmas to Epiphany: December 25–January 6), and a reflection season (from Epiphany to Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent starts).

December 25 was officially established as the Feast of the Nativity in AD 354, but it was celebrated in Rome as early as 336. January 6 was celebrated in the Eastern Church as the Feast of the Nativity, called Epiphany, as early as AD 200. The Western Church adopted this date in the 300’s, soon after Christmas was set as December 25. They celebrated Epiphany as the coming of the Magi, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, which did not happen on the night Jesus was born. So, the period from Christmas (December 25) to Epiphany (January 6) became known as the Christmas Season: the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Around AD 380, a season of preparation similar to Lent in the spring was introduced. This period became known as Advent, meaning “coming” in Latin. In the East, this preparation time is called “Nativity Lent” instead of Advent. Just as the Sundays after Pentecost are for reflecting on Easter in the spring, the Sundays after Epiphany focus on reflecting on the Incarnation during the winter feasts.

A Treasure for the Whole Church

The Church Calendar has been in place since the Fourth Century. It predates the Reformation of the 16th Century and the Great Schism of 1054 by almost 600 years. This ordering of time, the rhythm of the Christian Year, belongs to all Christians. It is the heritage of the unified Church, not just a “Roman Catholic” or “Protestant” thing, nor a “Western” or “Eastern” thing. It is our common heritage and part of our common life as Christians.

(To go even more in-depth on the Church Year, check out the Book of Common Worship, published by our denomination.)