What is Ash Wednesday? Why Observe Lent? Why Should I Care About the Church Calendar?

I'm not in love with all things old.

I don't think then is better than now.

I'm not trying to get back to how things were.

My journey in learning about the liturgy and the liturgical year is not about nostalgia; it's about spiritual formation.

The people who wrote some of the best liturgical prayers-- from John Chrysostom (The Eastern Orthodox's "Divine Liturgy") in the 4th century to Thomas Cranmer in the 17th century (Anglican Book of Common Prayer)-- were passionate followers of Christ and diligent scholars of the Scriptures and of theology. When the seasons of the church calendar-- or the "Christian Year" or the "liturgical year"-- developed, it developed as way to aid in the spiritual formation of those who sought to follow Christ. Easter was the first church-wide event to commerate. (One could say the first Christians began celebrating the resurrection the very next Sunday after Christ's ascension as a "mini-Easter.") Lent was the earliest actual season to develop and be adopted by the church world-wide. It became a common Christian practice in AD 330, shortly after Christianity had been legalized in AD 313 at the Edict of Milan. The other seasons of the Church year (like Pentecost, Advent and Christmas) took shape later. By the High Middle Ages, the Church Year was fully developed, complete with special feast days for certain saints. 

But why? Why was this developed? Why would anyone today practice these things?

To say it simply, the liturgical year was developed as a way to help the spiritual formation of Christians. How does it do that? Two main ways:

1. It Centers Us On Christ
As Christianity spread, many of the Church's members (and for a time in the early Middle Ages, many of its clergy!) were illiterate and ignorant of the Scriptures and of theology. A year that would center them on Christ was a way of helping them, teaching them, placing them in a rhythm of living that helped them reflect on Christ.

You may not have seen this right away (I did not!), but the liturgical year follows the life of Christ. It begins with anticipating His arrival in Advent, celebrating His birth at Christmas, marvelling at His revealing during Epiphany, humbling ourselves in repentance as we join His fasting in the wilderness during Lent, reflecting on His love and sacrifice during Holy Week, remembering our sin and the weight of all the world's evil that He carried on the cross on Good Friday, embracing the silent emptiness of Holy Saturday, celebrating the breakig forth of new life at Easter and Eastertide, rejoicing at His giving of the Spirit and His work in the Church during Pentecost, and trusting that His presence is with us still during Ordinary Time. The liturgical year helps our lives revolve around Christ.

2. It Connects Us to The Body of Christ
Many of you began the new calendar year with a period of prayer and fasting. It's an excellent way to start the year. One of the benefits of celebrating Lent is that you'll be fasting along with millions of Christians all around the world at the same time! We talk all the time about wanting the Church to be in unity, but then dismiss traditions as empty ritual. But what if these sacred traditions can be a way for us to walk in unity together?

The bottom line is: no, you don't need to care about the Church Calendar. You don't have to celebrate Lent or participate in Ash Wednesday. These are not requirements or laws. But then again, you don't need to have a date night with your wife; you don't need to have family vacations. But rhythms and routines are ways of reinforcing a desire. It's because I want to nurture my relationship with my wife that we have date nights; it's because I want our family to be connected that we take vacations together, and have family traditions. In the same way, it's because I want to nurture my relationship with Christ and because I want to be connected to the Body of Christ that I am embrace the "family traditions" of the liturgical year. 

So, the liturgical year is not a requirement, but neither are they "empty rituals." They are sacred rhythms, routines that reinforce our desire to follow Christ and become like Him. They are helpful ways to center our lives on Christ. They create the space for His Spirit to shape us. And they are a powerful rememinder that we are not the first to follow Christ, nor are we the only ones attempting to do so. (For more on this, read my post written last year called "Sacred Rhythms: Preparing for Lent, 2011.") We are joining a great company of saints and sinners-- the people of God!-- travelling up this mountain together.

And, personally, I hope you'll join in. 

SO...a few things specifically about Ash Wednesday and Lent:

• Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent.
• At our Ash Wednesday service, we'll pray through the "Litany of Pentitance", found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It's a beautiful and quite thorough guide to allowing the Holy Spirit to work His conviction in us.
• The "imposition of the ashes" on our foreheads is an echo of the Scripture's injunction: "Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return." It's a way of confessing our finiteness, admitting our limitations, and trusting Christ to break through our own "dead ends."

• Lent itself is a season-- 40 days long-- of fasting. (It's technically 46 days, but the Sundays are "Feast Days"-- See the next bullet point.)
• Every Sunday in Lent is a "mini-Easter", which means you can enjoy anything you had been fasting from on Sunday!
• The fast is about lowering ourselves, humbling our hearts, confessing our sins, and trusting in Christ. It is also a way of "sharing in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings."
• The fast is also about caring for the poor and the helpless (See: Isaiah 58). Often, a Lenten offering is taking each week for the poor. (I encourage people to take the money they saved by giving up whatever it is they were giving up-- coffee, chocolate, etc-- and put it in the Lenten offering box.)

I'm no pro at this. But I can tell you that this discovery-- or recovery-- of the Church's path for spiritual formation has been refreshing to me. I pray it is for you as well.

May the Spirit lead you to Christ.

[For further reading from me on this, here are a few blogs I wrote, one called "Why I'm Observing Lent This Year" and one called "Sacred Rhythms: Preparing for Lent, 2011."]

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UPDATED: new life DOWNTOWN's Ash Wednesday service:

February 13, 2013 at 12:00pm-12:50pm
320 South Weber 

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Comments

[Adam Ranck]

Thanks for writing this. I've been trying to learn more about the jewish and the church calendar over this last year because I've seen how it helps center my life on Christ. Just like anything, it can become a "dead ritual" if we let it, but it can and has been a great help to people in drawing closer to Jesus and focusing their lives around Him.

What you said makes a lot of sense with why we have date nights with our wives and vacations with family and connecting that with how this can help us invest into our relationship with Jesus.

Would you know of further resources and books that may educate me more on these practices and the church calendar (and maybe on the Jewish)?

Also, I was curious what your thoughts were on the feast days for certain saints. What was the purpose for having those?

[Felicity]

Really appreciate this! I'm teaching at Christian Classics course and the BCP is one of our texts. I'm enjoying the study of this "new" idea very much. : )

[Anthony]

It's refreshing for me also.

[Fred Bristow]

Spirit led worship is always great regardless of the format.

However, for communion, dipping the bread into the wine to me isn't right and just doesn't conform to what Christ told us to do: Eat the bread and drink the wine - in remembrance of His Body and Blood. The dipping thing reminds me of the way in which He identified Judas as the betrayer.

[Mel]

Thanks for writing this, Glenn! This is a ton of research narrowed down to incredible simplicity. Bravo! Through this, a bunch of questions rose up within me, and I feel I must ask. When comparing the liturgical calendar to the Hebraic calendar, there are lots of parallels. However, I'm finding the history of the liturgical calendar came centuries after the early church began. So, I'm left wondering how much the liturgical calendar replaced the Hebraic calendar and why, especially since Jesus fulfills the Hebraic calendar.

Here's where I'm coming from:
* God spent 40 years teaching the Israelites His seasons, festivals, laws, justice, mercy, and love.
* The law, prophets and psalms sum up Jesus the Messiah
* Elements of the tabernacle point to Jesus
* Those who love the Lord will follow these (motivated my love not by obligation)
* Those who are circumcised in the heart are more Jewish than Jews whose hearts are not circumcised (Romans 2:28-29)
* In the day of the Lord, nations that do not go to Jerusalem to observe the Festival of Trumpets will have no rain. (Zechariah 14) -- Presuming this prophecy has not yet been fulfilled, the liturgical year does not observe this festival.

With that, when did the liturgical year replace the Hebraic calendar? Who changed what the church observed in the early church? What's the motive behind the changes?

I hope all that makes sense, and I hope you can clarify these questions for me as I'm seeking answers. Thanks again for providing a great summary of the liturgical year and for answering the questions I have. Many blessings to you and your ministry.

[Jason]

It's good to hear an evangelical recognize the value in the early orthodox Christian traditions. I highly recommend worshiping with an on orthodox church a few times this season in addition to however you decide to practice Lent, especially if you can find one that does their services in English. Their services are filled with very early Christian traditions filled with reverence for the saints who passed the faith onto us and worship of Christ. You'll likely find more Scripture being read, chanted, sung, and prayed in one "divine liturgy" (Sunday morning Orthodox Christian service) than any 3 months worth of Protestant "Bible" church services. That has been my experience.

The holy Apostles taught followers of the Way to hold to the traditions they had taught them, whether by word of mouth or by Scripture (2 Thess 2:15, 1 Cor 11:2). Unfortunately, the Catholics broke off from the Eastern Orthodox and then the various evangelical denominations broke off from the Catholics. Most Christians in America have strayed very far from the early, and often Apostolic, Christian traditions.

[Shaylon Matthew Sharp]

Fantastic sentiments Glenn. The world we live in is fast-paced and exhausting for many reasons. What's the result? 1) It Numbs us to Meaning. 2) It Deconstructs the Imago Dei by reducing us to merely function...in other words we "just wanna get thru the day" or "just wanna get to the weekend" or "just wanna punch out our timecards & watch TV for 4hrs." We get NUMB to the significance of life, and the Imago Dei doesn't flourish & bloom as it should.

Following the Christian Year reintroduces a cadence that is Other-worldly but FOR this world.
The Christian Year establishes a rhythm of being that calls us into God's Story. Several years ago, my senior pastor began to lead our church into the Christian Year. He recently moved, and I became lead pastor. We've kept walking "further up and further in."

i truly appreciate you engaging The Christian Year! It's good to see fellow "low church evangelicals" begin to walk in step with ancient rhythms. This year, we're also incorporating a "Psalms as Art" night into our Lent/Easter season. (Painting, Poems, Collages, Carpentry, etc.) For 2hrs our entire church meditates on God's Word...and ends up producing fantastic art.

Your Brother in Christ!

[Gary]

Posted three days ago and 185,000 views. Perhaps "empty rituals" also can look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhYuA0Cz8ls

But more reflectively, perhaps I--and all of us--shouldn't be as quickly dismissive about how others find and create meaning, especially in the exercise in spiritual disciplines.