By the Way, We're Still in the Epiphany Season

You may have wondered why the Gospel lesson for yesterday was Matthew 5:1-12. This is Epiphany Season, after all, a time when the Gospel lessons revolve around those instances in Jesus' life and ministry when His deity was revealed. What does yesterday's lesson, encompassing the opening of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, have to do with this Epiphany theme?

Consider the setting in which the sermon happens: "the mountain." It was to the top of a mountain that God called Moses back in the Old Testament book of Exodus. There, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

It was on mountain- and hill- tops that ancient peoples built shrines, altars, and temples to their deities. It was on Mount Zion in Jerusalem that God's people built the Temple. And God was deeply offended, repeatedly, when His people used other hills and mountains to erect altars to foreign deities, just to "cover all the bases."

When the one true God of the universe entered the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He called His followers to be with Him on the mountain to let them know more fully Who He is and what He wills. He showed Himself to be more than a "new Moses"; Jesus is God Himself calling us to be in relationship with Him.

Let God Come to You

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Isaiah 9:1-7
More than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God had a quarrel with His chosen people, Israel.

Israel, of course was called to be a light to all the nations of the world regarding God’s goodness, love, and power. But often, the people of Israel forgot who they were. That was the cause of God’s quarrel with them.

But really, when you think about it, the people of Israel were no different from you and me.

When things are going well, we get so full of ourselves that we leave no place for God. When that happens, trouble starts.

A woman Ann and I knew came to faith in Christ as an adult. She got a good start on her Christian life. But then, we saw her less and less at church. Then her husband stopped coming to church. Finally, one night, the husband called me with sad news. The wife, who had gradually left no place for God in her life and had made it uncomfortable for the husband to any longer be in worship, had taken up with another man. “Why?” the husband asked her. “I got tired of being perfect,” she explained. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you never were perfect.”

When things are going well in our lives, we can fool ourselves into thinking that it all has to do with our goodness (our perfection), rather than with God’s goodness (and God's perfection). We can lose touch with God. And when you lose touch with God, without even knowing it, you can begin to lose your integrity, your morals, your relationships, and the life that only God can give.

Ancient Israel fell out of touch with God. The eight chapters of Isaiah that precede our lesson present God’s indictment of a people so full of themselves that they had no place for God anymore. Through Isaiah, God said that the people of Israel were rife with wrong:

• Bribery was an everyday part of their life.
• They were indifferent to the plight of widows who, in those days had no property rights.
• They didn’t take care of orphans, of whom there were many in those days of short life expectancies and of childbirths often ending in the deaths of mothers.
• They had become like Gomorrah in their sexual lives, taking an “anything goes” approach.
• Instead of worshiping God alone, they took a breezy attitude that all gods and all religions were really the same.
• They relied on other things to help them to make decisions, rather than relying on God alone. 

In Isaiah, chapter 8, God warns that for living like this--choosing the world's darkness over God's light, His people would be enslaved by foreign conquerors. Israel would see, God said, “only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish…[and] be thrust into deep darkness.”

That’s where our first lesson, Isaiah 9:1-7, begins. Would you pull out the special insert?

Notice that verse 1 actually begins with the word, “But.” God is saying, “Nevertheless…In spite of…Even though. Even though you’ve brought this darkness onto yourself, I’m nevertheless going to make something new and good happen. You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to send it because I love you.”

Read verse 1 aloud with me, please:

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Zebulun and Naphtali, named for two of the sons of Jacob from Genesis, were regions of ancient Israel. They were well north of Jerusalem and bordered the region of Galilee where, seven hundred-plus years after Isaiah, Jesus would be raised. At the time Isaiah wrote, the people of Israel were in the clutches of foreign conquerors who stole the produce of their land and sent some of their best and brightest people back to Assyria to serve as slaves. Because of their geographic positions, Zebulun, Naphtali, and even Galilee often bore the brunt of foreign intrusions.

In this verse, God is revealing that He not only will free Israel from the Assyrians, but will also one day shine the full light of His glory and love in Zebulun and Naphtali. God will enter these places of slavery, God reveals through Isaiah, and offer freedom to the whole human race. From Galilee, a place where not only Jews, but also many Gentiles, lived, God’s light would be revealed. Gloom would be banished!

Read on, aloud please, verse 2:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. 

When I was in junior and senior high school, the light in my folks’ bathroom was a regular 100-watt incandescent lightbulb. Morning and night before the mirror that hung below that bulb, I’d slather on the Noxzema, scrub myself clean, and pop my zits. In that mirror, by that light, I looked OK. But I’ll never forget my first day of classes at Ohio State, Summer Quarter, 1971. I had a class on West Campus and needed to go to the restroom. There were fluorescent lights there and I caught sight of myself in the mirror. That was the first time I realized I had a major acne problem. Later, when a girl I was dating—Ann—told me about a dermatologist, my time in that light made me open to her suggestion.

Light can show us our flaws. Get close to Jesus, read about God’s will for our lives in the Bible, or ask God in prayer to show us how our lives can better reflect His love for us, and we see things about ourselves we wouldn’t otherwise know or acknowledge. When you’re in the darkness of your own sin, you need the light of God to show you your flaws. That’s the first step into relationship with God.

And it's an essential continuing step for the maintenance of our relationship with God. Psalm 139: 23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”


This is why, if we will pay heed to them, even God's commandments are gifts of grace. Obedience to them cannot save us. But attention given to them will show us the places we need to grow in our lives, the sins of which we need to repent, the temptations we need to look out for. God's commands are a mirror that show us who we are and send us to God to help us be the people He has called us to be.*

But light does more than show us our flaws, the sins for which we need to repent. Light can also show us the way. God wants to light your way through the dark passages life sometimes brings. A woman came to me with a problem. “Have you prayed about it?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said, “but God hasn’t shown me how it will all turn out.” “God never will show you how it will all turn out,” I told her. “He’ll just give you enough light to take the next step.”

That’s not entirely true: God has shown us how things will ultimately turn out. If we follow Jesus, we’ll end up with Jesus for eternity. But, along the way, we just keep following His light.

Verses 3-5, show us that one day, beyond what you and I can see right now, God is going to bring an end to this age of violence in which we live.

• One day, murders with assault rifles will end. 
• So will wars. 
• So will selfishness and insensitivity to the needs of the poor and the hungry. 
• So will child abuse and spousal abuse. 
• So will unkindness. 
• So will abortion as a form of birth control. 

All the ways in which we kill others, in fact, will come to an end.

Jesus, Who has died and risen to bring life, will ensure that all who repent and believe in Him, will be freed from the violence of this world forever.

In Matthew 5, in a portion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek; for they will inherit the earth." Eternity, He tells us, will belong to those bold enough to surrender their lives and wills to Christ alone, through faith alone, and God's Word alone. We can’t see the day foretold in the words God gave to Isaiah or those of Jesus yet, but that day will come when Jesus returns and makes His whole creation—including you and me—forever new.

Now, please read verse 6 with me:

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Seven hundred-plus hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God revealed that a particular child would be born and that, among other things, this human child would also be Mighty God.

Some are troubled that Jesus’ given name isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament prophecies about Him. I’m not troubled by that at all. If the prophecies had said, “Watch for Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, Whose mother is named Mary and Whose father will appear to be Joseph,” where would faith come in?

God wants us to have a relationship of love with Him, a relationship in which we choose to love Him for Who He is. And so the prophets, while never identifying Jesus by name, do identify Him by Who He would be.

That’s why people like Anna and Simeon, two people who knew God through His Word, could look at the baby Jesus when He was just eight days old and know He was the Savior, while doctors of theology, who loved earthly power and prestige, didn’t see Who Jesus was and passed a death sentence on Him.

Yesterday, in Catechism class, we watched the film, The Nativity Story, a deeply moving telling of the story of Jesus’ birth.

In one of the early scenes, the young Mary is shown with a woman in Nazareth who told the local children a part of the story of the prophet Elijah, as recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 19.

During the reign of King Ahab, an unprincipled compromiser who allowed his wife, Jezebel, to bring the worship of a foreign god called Baal into Israel, Elijah was used by God to defeat the prophets of Baal at a place called Mount Carmel. Elijah’s faith in God was vindicated.

But when Jezebel heard about what happened, she vowed to kill Elijah and, terrified, Elijah ran. He was certain that he was alone and that nothing could help him. In a panic, he desperately looked for God. After hiding in a cave, Elijah sensed God directing him to go to a mountain and look.

Then we’re told:

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:1-12, New King James Version)

Are you looking for God?

Be still.

Stop striving.

Quit trying so hard.

Let Him come to you, not only in prayerful silence as He did with Elijah, but most emphatically, in Jesus, the child and mighty God foretold by Isaiah seven centuries before Jesus’ birth.

Let Jesus come to you in His Word and in studying it with others as well as on your own (I wish that every adult here were in Sunday School class each week), in prayer you offer in Jesus' Name, in the fellowship of imperfect believers that is the Church, and in the Sacraments of Christ’s Church, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

You are not alone.

And in Jesus Christ, you are assured of an eternity with God.

Let Jesus guide your steps, one step at a time and you will see Him, know Him, and love Him because you know He first loved you. Amen

*In his introduction to a book of lectures from last year's conference, Seeking New Directions for Lutheranism, Lutheran theologian Carl Bratten writes:

The gospel does not nullify the law [God's commands]. After all, [Martin] Luther devoted a part of his Catechisms to teaching and explaining the Ten Commandments. It would come as a huge disappointment to him that Lutherans today are crediting him for replacing the law with the gospel...

In a lecture included in the book, Braaten speaks of "the gospel" and notes, "I do not mean the "gospel" in the narrow sense as opposed to the law, but in the wider sense that comprehends the whole counsel of God, the twofold Word of God, both law and promise." One reason that my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has fallen into error is that it dares to denigrate God's inviolable commands, subordinating them to a culturally acceptable "gospel" that doubts or denies the need for repentance, faith in Christ alone, or an understanding of the Bible that stands under the Bible as the authoritative source or norm of our life, faith, and practice. I pray to God that this will change.

Share the Light!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1:29-42
One of the problems people living in 2011 have when we read the Old Testament book of Isaiah is something the literary critics call its richness. Unlike most of the things we read each day, in any given passage of Isaiah, there may be words about more than just one thing. Sometimes, a passage may be about three things at once. It confuses us. Let me explain.

Last Sunday, I mentioned that tucked among the promises Isaiah received from God about ancient Israel’s impending release from slavery to the Babylonian Empire, were promises about the Servant Who would be sent by God to free more than just Israel from humanity’s greatest enemies: sin, death, and futility. The Servant would come to set things right for all who would welcome His rule over their lives, including you and me.

There are four "Servant Songs" in Isaiah. Today’s first lesson is one of them. As we consider this passage, along with our Gospel lesson for today, I want you to keep the image of an hourglass in your mind. It may help us to understand some of that confusing richness we encounter in Isaiah this morning.

When you stand an hourglass on end, it’s wide at the top, tapers to a narrow shape in the middle, then widens out again at the bottom. If we mapped God’s mission to bring humanity new life, from say, the moment He delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt about 1000 years before Isaiah, followed it through Jesus some 600 years after Isaiah, and then to the Church today, our map would look like an hourglass. The top of the hourglass would be the descendants of Abraham, more numerous than the stars in the heavens, before the coming of the Servant. The bottom of the hourglass would be chock-full of those who are spiritual descendants of Abraham through their faith in the Servant foretold by Isaiah.

Both ancient Israel and the Church of Jesus Christ were called to be God’s “light to the nations.” But, in a phrase used by Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten, “the flaming center” of history, the One Whose life is the light of the world, the narrow center of the hourglass, is Jesus Christ.

All the voices that spoke for God before Christ was born pointed ultimately to Him as our only hope for forgiveness and life, the Messiah who would come into our world to set the lives of all who believe in Him aright.

“Long ago,” the preacher in Hebrews said to his fellow Jewish Christians sometime before 70AD, “God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son…”

Jesus, the Servant Messiah, Who suffered and died to erase sin and death as powers over our lives and rose again to rend eternity open for all who believe in Him, is God’s ultimate self-expression, His Word of love and power and restoration for fallen people and our fallen universe.

The Church is commissioned to share Christ’s light, to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and to do so by being completely focused on Jesus, the Servant King. The Celebrate introduction to our lesson from Isaiah that Ann read a few moments ago is right as far as it goes. It identifies the Servant as Israel, saying that in the lesson “the Servant Israel speaks for herself.” But that’s only part of the story.

One of my favorite seminary professors, Tryg Skarsten, once recalled looking out onto a harbor at night. A large light, visible for miles, stood high over the harbor to guide ships coming in. Strung out into the harbor for thousands of yards were smaller lights. Each of them, Tryg said, were connected to the larger light from which they derived their power. Ancient Israel was God’s servant, of course, and it was a light to the nations. But it derived its capacity to be God’s servant and its power to be God’s light for the world from the true flaming center of life, “the Light of the world,” Jesus, to Whose coming Isaiah and other prophets pointed.

That’s why contemporary New Testament scholar Christine Roy Yoder writes that Christian readers cannot read our first lesson without seeing Jesus. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts. Read along with me silently:

Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. 

Jesus, as the Gospel of John tells us, is “the Word of God.” He is God’s Word to you and me. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus tell us that every one of our lives is of infinite value to God. God so loved you—you personally and individually—that He sent Jesus to take your punishment for sin so that all who turn from sin and take Him as the Lord and ruler over their lives, trusting their lives to Him, will have life forever with God.

If you’re anything like me, you don’t mind the message of the salvation Jesus brings, but you may not be so hot to make Him the ruler over your life. Jesus as Lord will sometimes tell us to do things we don't want to do. He'll sometimes tell us not to do things that we want to do. Let’s face it: Jesus can cramp our styles. When Jesus was eight days old, a man named Simeon spotted Him in the temple in Jerusalem, where Joseph and Mary had taken the baby to be presented to God. Simeon declared that Jesus was exactly Who Israel (and he himself) had been waiting for at the top of the hourglass. Simeon quoted verse 6 of our lesson from Isaiah, calling Jesus “a light” for the nations. But then, Simeon told Mary, Jesus’ mother, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed…”

Will we take Jesus as our King as well as our Savior or will we oppose Him?

Will we trust or selectively ignore the Word of God in the Bible and the Word of God enfleshed in Jesus?

Those aren’t abstract philosophical questions, but urgent ones on which our eternal destinies hang.

True story: Santosh was a blacksmith in India. He was part of the Dalit, the untouchables, the permanent underclass who are denied access to food, housing, clothing, education, or health care. Along with most of his people, Santosh worshiped his Biskarma (the tools he used in his work), thinking that it was them that gave him life. And Santosh led a miserable life, wasting what little money he had on getting drunk. When he came home, he beat his wife and children, who dreaded his very presence in their home.

One day, two missionaries who saw how troubled he was, invited Santosh to church. Surprisingly, the next Sunday, he took a place in the back of the sanctuary. The music was in his language and in a style he liked. Santosh kept coming back, intrigued by the word about Jesus sandwiched between this music he enjoyed.

Eventually, he gave his life to Christ and wanted to share the Good News about Him with his fellow untouchables. With the missionaries’ help, he got a scholarship to study at a Bible college. The day before he was to leave for college, a large group of villagers confronted Santosh. They threatened to beat him if he didn’t return to the worship of Biskarma and renounced his faith in Christ. Santosh didn't back down, knowing that Jesus had saved him not only from sin and death, but from the meaningless life that had driven him to drink.

After Santosh went to Bible college, the villagers threatened Santosh’s family and they eventually had to be moved to safety with him. Today, Santosh is the pastor of a thriving congregation that bravely (and joyfully) invites other untouchables to come and see and follow Jesus.

In the world and even in the Church, Jesus and His Word are signs that are spoken against. That’s no surprise. That’s because, as Hebrews 4:12, says, “…the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One to Whom we must render an account.”

Jesus is the Lord Who said that while we are saved by grace, He had not removed a single one of the Ten Commandments. If we show contempt for the commands in God’s Word, we also show contempt for Him Who is God’s Word. We cannot take Jesus as Savior if we don’t also take Him as Lord. We cannot be free of what enslaves us until we surrender to Christ the way Santosh did. 

Now, look at Isaiah 49:6 on the Celebrate insert. These are words from God the Father:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Israel was not the incubator for the Servant Jesus just for itself. Through Jesus Christ, the truth of God’s love for all humanity and His offer of eternal reconciliation with God, would go global. And that’s where you and I come in.

In our Gospel lesson today, when two disciples of John the Baptist, one of them Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, wanted to learn more about Jesus, Jesus issued a simple invitation, “Come and see.”

Later, a man named Philip told someone named Nathanael that he had found the long-awaited Servant-King. Nathanael was skeptical. Philip didn’t argue. He just said, “Come and see.”

Simon, Philip, you, and I are all at the bottom of the hourglass of God's salvation history. We are the small lights ignited by the cross and empty tomb of Jesus and by the Holy Spirit with whom baptized Christians are filled. Our power for living comes from Jesus. Jesus tells us to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven,” words we use in our Baptismal service.

The Servant Jesus came to save a dying world from itself, to save us from ourselves. He invites all to follow Him, be reconciled to God, and live eternally.

This week, this month, this year, be a light that helps others to come and see Jesus. God wants to fill eternity with people who have turned from sin and death and turned to Jesus for life and eternity. You are the lights God wants to use to guide others to the true Light of the nations, Jesus Christ. Jesus wants to fill His kingdom with those who have come and seen and believed in Him.

So, this is my simple plea to you this morning:

• Share Jesus. 
• Share Jesus with words and actions. 
• Share Jesus with honesty, not as self-righteous egotists, but as forgiven sinners grateful for the grace of God. 
• Share Jesus so that all the world will come and see what a wonderful God we have! 
• Share Jesus so that all the world will have peace with God and with themselves today and in eternity.

Amen!

A Prayer from Saint Augustine

It's appropriate for this coming Sunday, the second one after Epiphany:

O God, the light of the hearts that see You, the life of the souls that love You, the strength of the minds that seek You; from Whom to turn is to fall, to Whom to turn is to rise and in Whom to abide is to stand fast forever: grant us Your blessing as we offer up our confessions and supplications, and though we are unworthy to approach You or to ask anything of You at all, hear and forgive us, for the sake of our great High Priest and only Mediator, Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen

Source: Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle A (General Editor: Thomas C. Oden; Edited by Cindy Crosby)

(Saint Augustine)

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.]