Advent Season Welcome

This is the welcome that visitors to Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, will find in their worship bulletins during the upcoming Advent season, which begins this coming Sunday, November 30. Advent is a great time for people without church homes to find one. Wherever you live, I hope you'll find a church where you can hear God's Word and feel welcomed. To learn more about the Church Year, go here.

We welcome you to Living Water Lutheran Church in the Name of the God made known to all the world in Jesus Christ! We hope that while here, you feel welcomed and that as we worship God together, you are drawn closer to God.

We’re in that part of the Church Year called Advent. Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which always happens on December 25 and is the festival of Jesus’ birth to a virgin named Mary.

Advent is a time that remembers the expectant waiting of God’s people, the Hebrews or the Jews for the coming of the King, the Anointed One, promised centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the Hebrew language of God’s people, the title for that King is Messiah. In the Greek language in which the New Testament was written in the first century, that title is rendered as Christos, Christ.

Advent is also a time when we modern day Christians expectantly anticipate the coming of the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ Jesus to bring an end to this fallen universe and usher in with finality and perfection His new creation.

The word Advent comes from the Latin and means coming.

The color of the season is blue. With its connection in our imaginations to clear skies, blue suggests the hope that we have as those who trust in Jesus Christ as God, King, and Savior, knowing that through Him, we have a certain hope of eternity with God.

Once again, welcome and may God bless you! 

Don't Be Afraid of the Advent Police!

Loved this cartoon, which I saw on Facebook today.

My seminary training that told me that you sang no Christmas hymns and had no Christmas decorations in the church building during Advent got upended during my first Advent as a pastor.

A parishioner said to me after the Second Sunday of Advent, "Pastor, I notice that we haven't sung any Christmas hymns yet." Drawing on my "theological training," I told him (as if he didn't know): "This is Advent. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of Christmas." "But, Pastor," he said, "singing Christmas hymns is how I prepare for Christmas."

I knew that the same was true for me. I prepared myself for Christmas during Advent with all that reminded me of Christmas. I always started playing Christmas music on Thanksgiving and played it loudly throughout my house until the end of the year. At the moment that parishioner said this to me, my family and I had had our Christmas decorations up for about three weeks.

I never want to get rid of Advent hymns or the celebration of the unique elements of Advent. But during Advent, we do prepare for the coming of the celebration of the birth of Christ (as well as of the certainty of His return in glory one day) and it's good to be reminded of this fact. So, I've been sure to include Christmas hymns during Advent worship in the churches I've served ever since.

By the way, it's by this same logic that I also reject the ancient custom of putting "Hallelujah" away during Lent, as we were also taught to do in seminary.

Jesus is still risen from the dead, whether it's the Third Sunday in Lent or not. Stifling our Hallelujahs during Lent, pretending that we don't have an Easter victory for which to praise God during that time reminds me of an old bit used by comedian Steve Martin.

Martin would be in the middle of his routine, look down at his feet and say, "Oh, my shoes are untied," bend down and then pop right up again, saying, "No, they're not. I love to fool myself like that!" We can remember with awe, sadness, and contrition Christ's death for us on the cross. But we can no longer pretend that His lifeless body lay in the tomb. We can't fool ourselves because He is risen!

And so, as Christians we have just as much reason to shout, "Hallelujah!" ("God be praised!) during Lent as at any other time of the year. Why should we stop praising God because of what is, when wrongly used, a human conceit.

In fact, there's even more reason to sing Easter hymns during Lent than there is for us to sing Christmas hymns during Advent. Every Sunday is meant to be a "little Easter" in which we celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death when He rose from the dead on the first Easter. That's why the Sundays that fall during Lent aren't counted as part of the forty days of the season, meaning that we call Lenten Sundays, Sundays in Lent, and not Sundays of Lent.

The Church Year is a tool that can be used to glorify God and convey the central truths of the Christian faith both to seekers of God and to those who have been in relationship with God through Jesus Christ their entire lives. It can help us to worship God and live out a balanced faith rooted in the whole truth about the God revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.

But the Church Year falls into the category Martin Luther called "adiaphora," a Latin term that means, "indifferent things," things that, in themselves cannot bring salvation. It is, as the theologians say, "non-salvific," incapable in itself of bringing a saving faith in Jesus Christ to those who use it. The Church Year then, is the moral equivalent of a hammer. A hammer is a great tool, but it can't save you from sin and death. Only the word of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that word embodied in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion can work salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

You won't go to hell if you sing a Christmas hymn during Advent.

You won't encounter God's wrath for singing, "Hallelujah!" during Lent. (Nor by singing its variant, "Alleluia!")

Nor will God be upset if you continue to sing hymns of praise during both seasons, also no-no's according to liturgical propriety.

Christ sets free all who hear His Word and by faith, turn from sin and believe in Him.

We are no longer slaves to the proscribed customs of human beings.

We may find the Church Year a useful tool for growing in our faith. But we shouldn't be slaves to it.

[The cartoon was shared by Pastor Steve Shipman on Facebook. He got it from the FB site, Episcopal Church Memes. But I have no idea who the cartoonist is. If any of you know, I would like to know in order to attribute credit.]

What is the Church Year?

[Five years ago, as we were beginning a new season of Advent, I presented this explanation of the Church Year. It remains one of the most popular posts I've written for this blog. As we prepare, this Sunday, November 28, to begin another Advent season, I thought people might find it helpful.]

The Church Year is a human invention. Observing it won't make us better than anybody else. Nor does keeping it "save" a person from sin and death.

But the Church Year is one of those customs or traditions designed to help people know the God we meet in Jesus and also help believers to grow in their faith.

The Church Year is built around three great festivals: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

Christmas, of course, is the celebration of Jesus' birth.

Easter is the day remembering Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

Pentecost remembers the occasion fifty days after Jesus' resurrection and ten days after His ascension into heaven when the Holy Spirit came to Jesus' praying disciples and gave birth to the Church.

Historically, Easter was the first holiday (the word contracts two words: holy day) that Christians began to celebrate. This only makes sense, as it's Jesus' resurrection that gives Christians hope for this life and the one to come. While early Christians did seem to remember Easter on a Sunday falling at the beginning of the Jewish Passover, the practice of the first Christians, all of whom were Jews like Jesus, was to worship on the traditional Jewish Sabbath--from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday--and to celebrate every Sunday as a little Easter. (Some echo of this can be found in the Gospel of John's occasional references to an "eighth day," a new beginning in a new week.)

Over time, a Church Year developed which allowed for the retelling of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension, followed by Pentecost. The Church Year, in order, moves through these seasons:

• Advent
• Christmas
• Epiphany
• Lent
• Easter
• Pentecost

Advent, with which the color blue is most often associated today, is celebrated on the four Sundays preceding Christmas, which always occurs on the fixed date of December 25. The word advent, means coming or presence. The theme of Advent is waiting. This season remembers more than the centuries when the world anticipated or waited for the coming of the Savior, Jesus, on the first Christmas. It also calls us to patiently await both God's activity in our own lives and the return of Jesus at the end of earthly time. Advent's blue, the color of the sky, reminds us of the endless hope all believers in Jesus Christ have.

Christmas begins on December 25 and ends on January 6, with Epiphany Day. (That's why people sing about The Twelve Days of Christmas.) We don't know the exact date of Jesus' birth. Our current date was long ago selected to be a Christian alternative to a pagan Roman festival, Saturnalia. Christmas has a short season of two Sundays associated with it, running right up to the season of Epiphany. The color of the Christmas season and of Easter, because they are both festivals of Jesus, the sinless Savior, is white.

The word epiphany comes from a Greek compound word meaning to shine upon. The Epiphany Season begins with January 6, the day we commemorate the arrival of wise men from foreign lands who followed a star to the baby Jesus to a house in Bethlehem. It was there that Mary and Joseph lived with their Child for several years after the Savior's birth. January 6, in fact, is called Epiphany Day. (Because the wise men brought gifts, Epiphany was historically the day on which Christians gave gifts to one another.) The Epiphany Season is composed of between four and nine Sundays after January 6. The season is bracketed by a first Sunday, which always remembers Jesus' Baptism, and a Sunday at the end that remembers Jesus' Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration, on top of a mountain, accompanied by three of His disciples, Jesus' image was transfigured by the luminescence of heaven and God spoke, confirming Jesus' identity and mission. On the two bracketing Sundays of the Epiphany Season, the color is white. During the season in between, the color is green.

During the Epiphany season, Christians look at the early signs that pointed to Jesus being more than just a human being, but also God in the flesh, the Light of the world. The emphasis of the Epiphany season is usually on sharing the good news of Christ with others, shining the light of Christ on those around us.

After Epiphany comes Lent, a word which in the Old English, meant spring. Lent is a time for spiritual renewal and precedes the holiest days of the Church Year, including Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Lent is referred to as a season of forty days, which it is if you know how to count the days. Because Sundays are always "little Easters," the Sundays in Lent (not of Lent), are not counted as part of those forty days.

The color associated with Lent is purple, the color of royalty because in ancient times, purple dyes were so rare and expensive that only royalty could afford cloth of that color. Historically, the season of Lent was a time of preparation for adult converts to the faith to prepare for their initiation into Christianity at Easter.

There are several key days on the Lenten calendar. The season begins with Ash Wednesday. This is a day of repentance, that is, of turning away from sin and turning to Christ for forgiveness. Of course, as Martin Luther phrased it, "daily repentance and renewal" are meant to be an ongoing element of the Christian's life as we routinely strive to orient ourselves to God and His will for us. But Ash Wednesday is a time when all are especially reminded of it.

Near the end of the season comes Passion Sunday (also known as Palm Sunday). On this day, we're called to remember both Jesus' seemingly triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the Sunday before His execution and Christ's passion, as well as its foreshadowing of Easter. Passion, a word that is used in entirely different ways today, really means to be so committed to the well-being of another that we're willing to die for them. Christ had that kind of commitment to us and so, went to a cross. Passion Sunday begins that portion of Lent called Holy Week.

The next major day on the Holy Week calendar is Maundy Thursday. Maundy is rooted in the Latin word mandatum, from which we get our word mandate, related to the word commandment. That's because on the Thursday night before He was executed, during the Passover celebration at which He instituted Holy Communion, Jesus also gave His disciples "a new commandment": that they love one another.

Many churches have foot-washing rites during their special gatherings on this day. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples before they ate together on that first Maundy Thursday and also commanded all of His followers to be servants like Him.

Good Friday, which comes on the next night, is a solemn remembrance of Jesus' death on the cross. For me, this is one of the most moving worship services of the year. At our congregation, as is true of many churches, we have a service called Tenebrae. This word comes from the Latin and means darkness. The service remembers the darkness that engulfed the world at Jesus' execution as well as our need of Him as the light in our darkness. The service ends in silence as all contemplate Jesus' sacrifice of Himself for us.

Easter Sunday brings the celebration of Jesus' resurrection in a special way and continues throughout the Easter season. This is usually the high point of the year, even in churches that don't use the Church Year. The Easter Season lasts about seven weeks. The Gospel lessons incorporate accounts of the resurrected Jesus' appearances. Tucked in the midst of the season, on a Thursday, is Ascension Day. This comes forty days after Easter. More on that below.

Pentecost Day, as I mentioned, is the celebration of the Church's birthday, when the Holy Spirit, Who hovered over the waters of primordial chaos to bring life into being back in the Old Testament book of Genesis, once again creates. This time, He creates new life by bringing Christ's Church, His body in the world, into being. The color of this day is red.

There follows after that a season that lasts from twenty-three to twenty-eight weeks. It's referred to simply as the Pentecost Season. The color is green because the emphasis here is on growing in our faith, learning to be Jesus' disciples or followers at ever-deepening levels of maturity.

The very first Sunday after Pentecost is Holy Trinity Sunday. This focuses on the great mystery of the God we meet in the Bible: One God in three Persons, revealed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The whole Church Year comes to a close, on the Sunday closest to November 30, with Christ the King Sunday.

Associated with each of the Sundays and many of the festivals of the Church Year are three cycles of appointed Biblical lessons. These cycles, referred to as Years A, B, and C, are called lectionaries. There are several sets of lectionaries, the the most well-known being those associated with the Roman Catholics, another with Lutherans, and another with a consortium of several Protestant denominations. The lectionaries are fairly similar, but do diverge occasionally.

Each Sunday and special festival day of the Church Year has appointed lessons from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament (either Acts, Revelation, or the letters), and a Gospel lesson. Generally speaking, the Old Testament, Psalm, and Gospel readings are thematically linked. The New Testament lessons are designed to make it possible over a three year period, to have almost all the letters, Revelation, and Acts read in public worship.

The three different cycles are built on the three synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Synoptic is a word that means to see together. These three Gospels are quite similar to one another--they see things similarly, while the Gospel of John has the most unique material.) Because Mark, with only sixteen chapters, is so short, the appointed Gospel lessons during its year are often taken from John.

Through my years as a pastor, I've felt free to spring loose from what one of our former Lutheran bishops, David Preus, called "the tyranny of the lectionary," looking at Biblical texts not appointed in the lectionary, in order to address issues that seem to be important in our community or world. But the lectionary does provide a well-rounded diet of Biblical material which, when looked at in a disciplined and devoted way, can help Christians develop a deeper faith.

[The image above, showing the cycle of the Church Year, comes from Augsburg Fortress, the publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.]