Understanding the Church Calendar: Milestones 4.14.2022

    Whenever Mrs. Beckman and I go and see one particular group of grandkids there are several landmarks that serve as milestones for the trip. We head north on IL 130 and the adventure begins. The first milestone is in Newton IL where there is a statue of Burl Ives. When we pass that statue, we both wave and speak to it. The next milestone is Greenup which is fun to say and has amazing infrastructure for basically being in the middle of nowhere. When we get to Charleston there are a few turns required to follow 130. One thing that is interesting about this stretch of highway is that we cross the Embarrass River four times. We get on 36 at Tuscola, take the interstate to Paxton, and soon one of us is sitting in Wren’s playhouse. 

    We don’t need those milestones to make the trip worthwhile—we’re going to see grandchildren after all. Yet we generally make mention of them to break up the trip and lend a sense of continuity with all other trips just like it. 

    Each of us, every human is taking a journey. From January to December. One year after another. Each year is different. Each year is the same. Allowing for some kind of organizing principle to guide this journey helps us to understand diversity in terms of continuity. 

The Christian year is organized around the two most significant celebrations within the broader Christian Community, Christmas, and Easter. Though the polemic often leveled against the Christian year makes it seem unbiblical or even contradictory to Scripture, it is in fact designed to put Jesus in the center of all Christian experience. This is done by orienting every other day of the year, to the Cross, the cradle, and other central affirmations of His life.  It is true that some individuals abuse the freedom we have in Christ to make more of these milestones than is healthy. That does not invalidate the process of the rest of us responsibly marking the landmarks of our yearly pilgrimage of faith. 

    When understood properly and proportionately the Christian year is another way of pointing Christians to the Word who became flesh and the Word which is written. I am tired of the consciences and behaviors of good, balanced, clear-headed people being constrained by the obsessive, compulsive, controlling, or addictive behaviors of others. Yes, some abuse the “holiday spirit” of Christmas and Easter. Some make far too much of it. Some do not take seriously the signal events celebrated, whether incarnation or resurrection. Abandoning historic Christian behavior due to the potential risk of abandoning Biblical principles will not prevent excess, irreverence, and ambivalence from those who approach everything so carelessly. 

    Calendar and lection, which is to say world and word, are reconciled in the committed lives of believers who treasure the reality of God in flesh. By committing ourselves to weekly remembrance around the communion table and pulpit, as well as yearly remembrance of the central acts of the Gospel story we are bearing witness to the act of God in Jesus. By this act, we are saved. By this act, we are nourished. By this act, we are embodied as the Church. By this act, we are commissioned as witnesses. What a privilege to say to a wearied world, "the Prince of Peace has come!" And a greater privilege to proclaim, “He is alive!”