Sermon (April 10) "An App for That: Calendar"

Of all the different spiritual practices we’ve explored this Lent, the calendar may be the most challenging for us to see how it can be something we can apply to our faith.

Think about it. We can practice fasting, or Sabbath, or prayer, or Holy Communion…But how can you really practice the Calendar? That might sound kind of strange.

Well, my hope is that we’ll appreciate how the calendar is a spiritual app that is meant to help grow closer in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

To help us get started, it might be helpful to see how the calendar relates to two other spiritual applications in our Lenten sermon series.

A couple of weeks ago, when we talked about the spiritual app of prayer, one of the forms of prayer Pastor Cheryl talked about was the Daily Office, or Fixed Hour Prayer. Praying the Daily Office regulates one’s day. It gives us a daily spiritual rhythm because we pray at daybreak, noontime, evening, and night time. This helps us keep focusing on God, and talking to God throughout our days. It sets a rhythm to our days just as the sun, moon, and stars set a rhythm to our days.

In a similar way, the spiritual app of the Sabbath sets a rhythm to our weeks. The Sabbath which isn’t to be confused with Sunday is a day of the week to remember that it was on this day when God rested and took delight in everything that had been created. We especially try to build into our Sabbath those activities which will refresh and restore us. We try and do things that help us to take delight in the world around us. And just as God blessed creation on the seventh day, we too are to find ways to be a blessing to others.

The spiritual application of the calendar is similar to fixed daily prayer and the Sabbath in that it brings rhythm to our years in the same way that daily prayer brings rhythm to our days, and Sabbath brings rhythm to our weeks.

So, what does it mean to use the calendar as a spiritual app? Just what is the Liturgical year?

The Christian calendar is the way the Christian community marks time. On an annual basis, it moves us through the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and forms us year after year into his image.

There are many different kinds of “calendars” that we use. There are fiscal years, school years, business years, and tax years. Each one of these is useful for its own specific purpose; but none of them is particularly useful for shaping us spiritually.

Living through the liturgical year, or following the Christian calendar, helps form us as disciples of Jesus Christ year after year. Just as the experiences we have in the daily life of the civic year mean that we are never the same people this year as we were last year, so it is with the Christian year. The cycle of the Christian year adds new opportunities to grow in our spiritual lives year after year, marking our spiritual growth like the rings on a tree.

At the very heart of the calendar is the Lord’s Day—Sunday worship! Ever since the very first Easter Sunday when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, Jesus’ followers have celebrated Christ’s resurrection each week on Sunday.

When we gather for worship every Sunday morning to sing songs to God, hear the Scriptures read and proclaimed, and participate in worship, we are being formed as followers of Jesus Christ.

It is not only the past we remember, or the Jesus of history that we come to worship. We worship and celebrate the living, risen Lord Jesus Christ who meets us in worship each Sunday and shapes our life so that the story of what God is doing continues in and through each one of us.

So the Lord’s Day is the basis of the Christian calendar.

But within the calendar we move through different seasons which help us mark time.

Let’s take a look at the calendar and how it helps form our spiritual life season by season.

The calendar begins not on New Year’s Day like the secular calendar but with the first Sunday of Advent, usually the last Sunday in November. The Season of Advent lasts four weeks, and is made up of the four Sundays immediately proceeding Christmas Day.

Advent helps prepare us for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, not just commemorating his birth at Christmas, but also preparing us for his Second Coming. The readings from Scripture will lift up these themes.

During Advent, we use the color blue on the altar and in the candles to represent hopefulness—the hope that we have because our Savior was born, and because he will come again and will renew all of creation.

Advent ends on Christmas Eve, and then the twelve day celebration of Christmas begins from December 25 through January 6 and January 6 is a liturgical day known as Epiphany.

During the twelve days of Christmas, the Church celebrates some of the ways that God has revealed himself to us in Jesus— primarily in his birth and in the revealing of the Star of Bethlehem to the Magi.

From Christmas to Epiphany, white and gold colors are used throughout the church. These are the colors used for the most festive and sacred seasons in the church year. So whenever you see these colors, it means that we are to especially celebrate God’s saving acts in Jesus Christ.

After Epiphany and until Lent begins on Ash Wednesday which covers several weeks, we have the first of two periods in the year called Ordinary Time. Ordinary here doesn’t mean “dull and boring,” but rather helps us realize that God does not only come to us during the razzle-dazzle, sparkly, holiday times of the year, but that God also comes to us in the dailyness of our lives. The color for Ordinary Time is green which reminds us of growth.

This first ordinary season between the end of the Christmas season and Lent, concludes with a very special Sunday of celebration known as Transfiguration Sunday. White is the color used on this day to encourage us to celebrate the time when Jesus was with his disciples on the mountain and was transfigured before them. When a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased,” we are reminded that these same words were spoken at Jesus’ baptism reminding us of Jesus’ special relationship with God. After Transfiguration Sunday, we begin the Season of Lent.

Lent/Easter/Pentecost will float around time-wise from year to year based on when Easter falls. Unlike Christmas which is based on the solar calendar and always falls on December 25, Easter is based on the lunar calendar which the Hebrew people use, and is closely tied with the Jewish festival of Passover. Easter can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25.

The season of Lent is a time of preparation. It lasts for forty days, not counting Sundays, from Ash Wednesday until the Saturday evening before Easter Sunday. That’s because the Jewish day runs from sundown to sundown. Christians retain a bit of this practice when we begin to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Recently, I had a medical procedure and as I was recovering from that procedure, I could overhear some of the nurses talking about the Season of Lent. And the one nurse was wondering why the Season of Lent seemed to be 46 days rather than 40 days if you count up all the days.

In my sedated state, I said to the nurse who was with me, “Tell them that it’s because you’re not supposed to count the Sundays because Sundays even during Lent are meant to celebrate the risen Christ.” The nurse who was with me threw open the curtain and said to the nurses, “Hey, this man is a pastor. Ask him your questions.” And for the next five minutes, we had a “q & a” time about the Christian calendar.

During the Season of Lent we follow Jesus as he heads toward Jerusalem, the Passion, and the cross. The scripture lessons draw us along with the crowds following Jesus. Christians often focus on growing in the spiritual disciplines during Lent.

We use purple in the sanctuary during Lent for a couple of reasons. First of all, since it’s not necessarily a bright and cheerful color like white or gold, it is meant to help us to reflect on our sins and shortcomings, but it also represents royalty, and points us toward the kingship of Jesus. When Jesus died, a sign was placed over his head on the cross that read, “Jesus, King of the Jews.”

As we draw near the season of Lent, Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday, helps us to focus completely on the Passion of Christ, or the depth of his love for us that led him to willingly die for our sins upon the cross.

And then there is Easter. Easter is by far the most important season of the church calendar.

The Church celebrates the Season of Easter all the way from Easter Sunday through the day of Pentecost. This is often called The Great Fifty Days, a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The scripture lessons will focus on the post-Easter resurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. And the festive colors of white and gold, along with Easter banners are used.

On the 40th day of the Easter Season which always falls on a Thursday, the church celebrates Jesus’ ascension. This is when after Jesus appeared multiple times to the disciples in his resurrected body that he ascended to sit at the right hand of his Heavenly Father to rule as King over all creation. We often think that Jesus’ ascension only means that he physically went up into the air to go to heaven. But it actually means that he ascended to his throne in heaven to rule, just as a king would ascend to his throne and begin his rule. Since Ascension Day always falls on a Thursday, the church often celebrates Ascension Day on the following Sunday when the people gather for worship.

On Pentecost Sunday which is the fiftieth day and concludes the Easter season, the color red is used. Red represents the fire of the Holy Spirit which was poured out on the early church, and continues to empower the Church throughout the ages. Pentecost reminds us that even though Jesus has ascended to his throne in heaven, that we are not alone. Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us to continue on Jesus ministry.

Finally, after Pentecost, we begin the second period of ordinary time. The first ordinary time was between the Christmas and Lent seasons. During this 2nd ordinary time, which lasts from late spring all the way into late fall, we often work our way through whole books of the bible in the scripture lessons each week. There is no focus on any particular theme during these weeks but we continue to grow in our faith as we hear about Jesus’ teaching and healing ministry. Green is the color used during Ordinary Time which is a symbol of growth and new life that we are to be experiencing.

Near the end of this long season of ordinary time, the church celebrates All-Saints’ Sunday, a festive day in which we give thanks for followers of Jesus who are no longer with us but who are now with the great cloud of witnesses. In particular, the church lights candles for each church member who has died over the past year. It’s a way for us to continue to celebrate their Christian witness and it also helps us to continue the grieving process.

After All Saints’ Sunday, the church resumes ordinary time which concludes with “Christ the King” Sunday, another celebrative day in which we are again reminded that Jesus is the true king over all creation. Following Christ the King Sunday, the church calendar begins all over again with the Season of Advent. And the church follows this same calendar year after year after year.

In closing, I’d like to offer this quote from Joan Chittister, author of the book, “The Liturgical Year.”

“Like a great waterwheel, the liturgical year goes on relentlessly irrigating our souls, softening the ground of our hearts, nourishing the soil of our lives until the seed of the Word of God itself begins to grow in us, comes to fruit in us, ripens in us the spiritual journey of a lifetime. So goes the liturgical year through all the days of our lives. It concentrates us on the two great poles of the faith—the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth.

But as Christmas and Easter trace the life of Jesus for us from beginning to end, the liturgical year does even more: it also challenges our own life and vision and sense of meaning. It leads us back again and again to reflect on the great moments of the life of Jesus and so to apply them to our own.”

Several years ago, I took my small Holy Communion kit to a rehabilitation unit of a hospital. I was going there to visit a retired United Methodist Pastor who was a patient there. It was Maundy Thursday during Holy Week when the church remembers when Jesus offered the bread and the cup to the disciples to help them prepare for his death on the cross. Since this retired pastor would not be able to attend this service at our church that evening, I wanted him to be able to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

When I arrived, he was already in the therapy room and we found a table where I was able to set out the bread and the communion cups. Another patient who was in the room noticed what we were doing and asked if she could join us. Soon, another patient expressed an interest in receiving. And then another. All of the sudden, what began as just two people became five to six people.

One of the therapists, noticing that several of us were gathered with me for Holy Communion came over to me and said, “That’s really nice of you to bring the Sacrament to one of your church members. Do you always bring the Sacrament with you during your visits?”

I told her “No, but since it was Maundy Thursday, I thought he would like to remember this special day.”

And this therapist said, “Oh my goodness. I totally forgot that today is Maundy Thursday. Can I receive the Sacrament too?” “Sure,” I said. “Pull up a chair.”

Thanks to the Christian calendar, in the middle of that busy day, seven people shared in a holy meal together and were reminded that Jesus died on a cross to take away their sins and offer them eternal life.

If a long-term, life-changing, life-giving encounter with God is what you are seeking, there’s an app for that…

The Christian calendar.
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