Considering "Easter," "Sunday," and what is the Lord's

The history of Christian calendar, though a great deal of fun to study and research, can be a bit confusing, if not frustrating. There is a great deal that we do not know because we have very few early records. Further, the early records we have reflect local practices which varied widely across Christian churches in the first two centuries. The calendar we (Protestants and Catholics) have now reflects a collection of practices across western churches over the ages. Yet even now there are some variations between Catholics and Protestants, and between Protestant denominations and groups.

The Unexpected

Life is unpredictable. Sometimes in delightful ways, sometimes not; sometimes in inconsequential ways, other times with profound consequences. This year’s women’s and men’s college basketball playoffs were surprising and unexpected in many ways. But that is not the same as the unexpected abundance of precipitation that has deluged drought ridden California, the consequences of which are still to be determined.

This is a week of unexpected events. Confusion over the division of labor in leading our recent Palm Sunday service was only compounded by an unreliable organ—certainly that was not the plan. Of course, the expectations of Jesus’ followers of his visit to Jerusalem for the Passover were far different than what unfolded.

A Holy Week, a conclusion to a Holy Lent

Five weeks ago, I began a series of reflections on our worship services and elements of them. I started by considering how each season of the church year invites us to reflect on our life with God, ourselves, and our world as a spiritual discipline. The next week I reflected on how the worship service is led by your pastors on your behalf, enabling you to be the primary worshippers. The week after that, I explored the Lord’s Prayer and how it serves as a resource for our worship each Sunday and a source for defining the “why” and “how” of worship and prayer. Two weeks ago I reflected on the place of non-verbals in our worship. How signs, sounds, and actions—alone and with words—comprise an essential part of our worship of the God of creation and creativity. And last week I suggested that our participation in the narrative of a season, participation through its re-membering, becomes a reminder of the astounding promise of God in Christ: that we, redeemed by Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, participate in the very life of God, as former North Park Seminary professor, Klyne Snodgrass, would say. 

Worship Words

The Christian traditions, like the Jewish traditions before them, are rooted in the understanding that you tell God’s story by becoming God’s story. The story of God’s activity in human history is not just a recounting of past events, but an ongoing event of which we are a part. The Christian churches since the earliest centuries have used the voices of biblical characters as part of their prayers, connecting our voices to their voices, our story with their story, as a way of identifying our common human nature and common relationship with God.

The Spiritual Discipline of Communicating

St. Augustine was puzzled. How can I get a thought in my mind into the mind of another person? He concluded the only way to do so was through signs, words, and gestures. This may seem obvious, but its implications are tremendous. Especially because people groups differ on what signs, words, and gestures they use and how they interpret them. In some ways, a culture is defined by agreed upon signs, words, and gestures and their agreed upon meanings. A subculture is defined by a people group with agreed upon signs, words, and gestures but hold distinct meanings. For example, in our “American culture” we have a sign known as the Confederate Flag. This is a contested symbol, defining subcultures within our country according to its various meanings.

Teach us to pray…

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples ask their teacher, with a bit of jealousy, “John the Baptist gave his disciples a prayer, why can’t we have our own prayer?” (Luke 11:1-4) Obviously disciples of various teachers were comparing notes, and Jesus’ disciples felt under-resourced.

Regardless of their intent or attitude, Jesus consented with what we now call the “Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father.” Or at least a form of it. Matthew records Jesus giving a different form of this prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Some manuscripts of Matthew include a conclusion, “For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever. Amen.” It is conjectured that a scribe in the early centuries of the Christian church added this because this is what was said in their church at the end of that prayer. We know this was used in churches very early, as a document written about the same time as the New Testament directs people to “Pray the ‘Our Father’ three times a day.” This appears to replace the three times of prayer required in Judaism at the time, morning, noon, and night.

The Art of Worship

As I continue to offer reflections on the practices of our faith for our considerations this Lenten season, I am reminded of the musings of Danish Lutheran philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was living in the in the early decades of the Enlightenment, where anything “supernatural” was to be rejected because it was not rational. At the same time, he experienced the worship of his Lutheran church, to which he felt called to ministry, as being pristine in its content and execution. It was filled with the music of Bach and performed by the finest vocalists and instrumentalists. But he found it lifeless. Not because it was performed unenthusiastically, but primarily because it was performed by the wrong people. Kierkegaard claimed that the people went to worship to passively receive. The scriptures are clear, we are to come to worship prepared to offer our gifts in concert with others as a corporate act of worship to God (1 Corinthians 14:26).

A Lenten Journey

I mentioned last week how seasons of faith are connected to the story of salvation in the scriptures, primarily the story of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, the ascension of the Son, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. I also suggested that an image for Lent is a journey with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, as he taught his followers more clearly what it means to follow as a disciple.

Time and Season

What time is it? If you are asking for the time of day, it depends on your time zone. If you are asking what day or season it is, it depends on what calendar you are referencing. If you are using the “typical” calendar, you will be reading this on Friday, February 17. But if you were using the sports calendar this would be the Friday after the Super Bowl and the end of the first week of spring training for pitchers and catchers. If you are using the church calendar, this would be the last Friday in Epiphany, two days before Transfiguration Sunday, and four days before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. All of these answers are correct, each in their own frame of reference.

State of First Covenant

I caught a bit of President Biden’s State of the Union speech before a meeting Tuesday night. President Biden was so positive and optimistic. My first response was admittedly cynical—the re-election campaign has begun! But upon further reflection, I thought that in a season when it is easy to be negative and cynical, it doesn’t hurt to be positive. Especially if there are legitimate reasons to be positive about present successes and optimistic about future prospects. So with such an attitude I offer some observations.

What time is it?

Yesterday was the last day of Christmas; or, at least, it used to be. Mary and Joseph, following the Law, presented their first-born male son, Jesus to the Lord’s service the fortieth day after his birth (Luke 2:22-40). The fortieth day after Christmas is called “Candlemas” or more descriptively the “Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.” This story was the last of Luke’s nativity stories, and celebrating it marked the end of the Christmas season or Christmastide. In many countries in the past, the Christmas holiday extended through all these 40 days, especially Sweden where people often had time off during Christmastide. Thinking this was a bit too generous the Swedes moved the end of the Christmas to the Feast of Knut, January 13, cutting the Christmas season in half.

Today was my first full day at the annual meeting of our Covenant Ministerium, affectionately known as “Midwinter.” For the almost four decades I have attended them, they have always been in late January or early February, hence its name. But from decade to decade, President to President, year to year they have different purposes, programs, and personalities. I thought I would reflect on my first day at this year’s Midwinter.

To begin with, today was a day of many types of meetings. I met with a staff member of Serve Globally to get an update on the Tangs.

Who gets what?

If you have been online or watching television lately, you have probably seen some of the efforts of the “He Gets Us” campaign. This is being funded by The Signatry, a Kansas based nonprofit organization that is spending upwards of $100 million to rehabilitate Jesus’ image in the broader culture. It hopes to offer alternatives to an ‘increasingly divisive and mean-spirited world’ as stated on their website. It seeks to connect Jesus with the variety of experiences of people—all sorts of people—in our world today. It seeks to emphasize the humanity of Jesus as an expression of the compassion of God in Christ. It also hopes to give Christians a foothold for conversations with their neighbors that they might not otherwise have.

Covenant Considerations in a New Year

As we begin a new calendar year, I would like to look back on the past year, specifically in terms of our denomination, our Covenant Church. In two weeks, I will be in Jacksonville, Florida for our Ministerial Midwinter Conference. One of the topics of discussion among my ministerial colleagues will be the decision announced by the Covenant’s Executive Board in October to involuntarily remove two churches from our denomination. Those churches are Awaken Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and Quest Church in our hometown, Seattle. This will come before our Annual Meeting in Garden Grove, California in late June.

Epiphany

Epiphany is a funny word, and a holy day (holiday) and season that sometimes escapes our grasp. To get a handle on it, let’s look at the word Christmas. Christmas comes from two words “Christ” or “Christ’s” and “Mass.” Christmas refers to the Mass (or worship service) offered to celebrate God’s gift of Jesus as God’s anointed one, or Messiah (Hebrew), or Christ (Greek).

Ending a Year

This is the last newsletter of the year. In the middle of this year, the name of the newsletter, and just about everything else about it, was changed, as was our church’s website. It was a year of many births (up to six, depending how you count), and appropriately, a renovated nursery. But this is just two of the new and renewed things that we as a church experienced this past year. But our year, with all its ups, had its share of downs. One of which was the tragic loss of a daughter by two of our missionaries, James and Rachel Tang.

Don't Let the Light Go Out!

In keeping with the tradition of trimming the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, I offer some late-Advent reflections strung together like popcorn and cranberries on a string.

It is almost Christmas. We held our last worship service in Advent this past Sunday. Christmas is almost upon us—and this may be good news for some, and not so good news for others. However much you want Christmas to come soon, or are praying for one more day before Christmas comes, I pray you find time to reflect and enjoy the promise of God’s light and love becoming flesh in Christ. In a hectic and sometimes abrupt holiday season, Christmas offers the promise of peace on earth and good will to all people.

Transitioning from Advent to Christmas

This Sunday is the fourth and last Sunday of Advent. The Sunday after this one is Christmas Day. Advent was originally a penitential season of preparation. In part it was preparation for a “High Holy Day,” in part because some people in Advent, as in Lent, were preparing for baptism. In the Western (Protestant and Catholic) churches, the day for Baptism was primarily Easter. In the Eastern (Orthodox) churches, the principal day for baptism is their Christmas (January 6) or the Sunday after, which celebrates the baptism of Jesus. Our Orthodox friends in Russia and Ukraine still baptize by immersion on those days. It makes baptism in Puget Sound look balmy by comparison!

Remembering: The Return of Old Friends

When our children were young we tried to have family devotions regularly on weeknights. We had songs we would sing, a Children’s Bible we would read from, and prayers we would pray. Each night we would begin by lighting a candle and extinguish it when we were done, with our children waiting anxiously for their turn to tend the candle. Except in Advent and Christmas, which were different in special ways. From Advent through the end of Christmas we had a six-sided tower with doors on each side to be opened like any Advent calendar. Behind the doors were “stained-glass” windows illumined by the battery-operated candle inside the tower. There were big doors on the bottom for each Sunday, and smaller doors for each weekday, with each side being one week. In each window was often a “saint,” or sometimes an event, with a Bible verse for that day on the back side of the door. We had an Advent wreath with its 5 candles to light along with special Advent and Christmas songs to sing. And our Advent/Christmas tower went all the way though Christmastide, starting on November 30 and ending on the Sunday after January 6. 

Conditions, Traditions, and Transitions: Stream of conscience ramblings in the first week of Advent

Last Wednesday some of you contributed to a worship service that I would describe as being heartfelt and inspiring gratitude. You offered your voices to songs, prayers and personal reflections. Those who attended in person had the opportunity after the service to practice eating pumpkin pie before you ate the “official” pie the next day. I cannot speak to what those who attended virtually did. If you did not attend this service in any mode, it is not too late. I encourage you to view the recording of the service. I believe you will consider it an hour well spent.