The history of Advent teaches us a great deal about its meaning and prepares us to observe this time with reverence and understanding. This history reveals the simultaneous importance of both penitence and hope, of both remorse and rejoicing.
The resurrection of the crucified Christ is the point on which the weekly and annual cycles of the Christian calendar turn. In fact, it supplies the clue to the whole history of salvation and indeed the cosmos. Every Sunday and every Easter day is a commemoration and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus and an anticipation of the day when the same Lord will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and finally establish God’s universal kingdom.
In the first centuries A.D. the cycle of Christian time grew out of the conviction that all-time finds its meaning in the death and resurrection of Christ. Thus the early Christians, beginning with the paschal event, extended the Christian calendar forward to Pentecost and backward to Lent and Holy Week. Later, in the fourth century, Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany were developed to complete the cycle.
Many churches that have rejected the practice of the Christian year follow the secular way of marking time. This article describes some of the “calendars” that churches use to mark time and points out some of the problems with the observance of civil occasions in particular. It is written from a Reformed perspective but will be useful to churches in any tradition.
The growing interest in liturgical renewal and the Christian year in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod is reflected in the recent publication of a new hymnal and companion volume. These publications follow, with some adaptations, the lectionary, and calendar proposed by the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship in 1973.
A part of the Holiness movement, the Wesleyan Church has never followed the full church calendar. However, aspects of the Christian year have been introduced incrementally in many congregations, enabling them to enjoy some of its benefits without abandoning their non-liturgical worship tradition.