ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 33.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> NICK: Perhaps it is the biologist in me that leads me to this question, but is there any relationship between the rhythms of nature and the theological foundations for the church year? >> DR. ARTHUR JUST: The fact of the matter is, Nick, that they are inseparable, and to talk about these natural rhythms and the theological foundations is to talk about how we see, here, the unity of the First and Second Articles of the creed, of God's creation and God's redemption. Now, I mentioned before that the church year develops in the Mediterranean world and so this is something that can only be reflected in the northern hemisphere. If you live in Australia or Brazil, it's going to be reversed and there's no way around it. But this is where it developed, and early Christians were very sensitive to the context in which they lived, not just a cultural context, but the natural context. And I think the best way to tell this story is to begin at the end of the church year. Where I live in Indiana, when we begin to see that October is coming to an end, and we're entering into November, we are beginning to see that the world is dying around us. We have this extraordinary burst of color, and especially where I lived in New England, where I grew up, the most magnificent color of the fall. But when all the leaves fall off the trees, it looks as if nature is experiencing its yearly death. T.S. Eliot said that April is the cruelest month. But I actually think he was wrong. I think it's November. November in Indiana and in New England and in most places in the United States is a pretty awful month. It's not yet winter. The days are growing shorter. It's usually cold and rainy and maybe a little snow. But we know the long haul through winter is coming upon us. And the church recognized that as the days were getting darker and it looked as if nature was, in fact, dying around it, this was a wonderful time to think about the end times, to think about death, to think about the coming of the Lord in judgment. And so it focused on the end things. Now, in our new lectionary, I think you can see this very clearly. We talk about the third last, the second last, the last Sunday of the Church year where we do focus on judgment and the end of all things because nature is recognizing, even as we live in it, that this is the reality of our world. What we are moving towards is the winter solstice, and this whole period of time, especially later on, begins with All Saints' Day, November 1st. We really do focus on the end of all things where we celebrate our common life with all who have died and risen in Christ, something I've described earlier as heaven on earth. As we move through these last Sunday's of the church year into Advent, there is a very natural transition. The gospel for Advent I, interestingly, this is the traditional gospel, is Jesus� entrance into Jerusalem, the Palm Sunday text. Now that confuses many people, and they wonder why we are using an Easter text, the Palm Sunday text, to begin the church year in Advent I. But what we are saying by using that text, or at least this is the wisdom of the ancient church, is that Jesus was born to die. What we anticipate in seeing Jesus come into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is the king coming to his destination, his destiny of death. And what we see is that really, even though we're going to celebrate Jesus' birth in this Advent Christmas season, it�s really about death. It's about Good Friday and then Resurrection, new life on Easter. There is, really, a very simple, gentle transition from the end of the church year to its beginning because the person who is kind of the key figure at the beginning of the church year in Advent is John the Baptist. And he's kind of an apocalyptic preacher. He preaches a message of the end of times. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. John the Baptist is an aesthetic. He's the one who's preparing the way of the Lord, and that's what Advent is about. Advent is about preparing the Lord's way, the way of his birth. And notice that when John preaches about the way of the Lord from Isaiah, he uses imagery that involves creation, that the mountains are going to be laid low, that the valleys are going to be filled up so that the road to Jerusalem that the Messiah must travel is going to be a road that goes straight to his destiny in Jerusalem. John the Baptist prepares the way by even taking the natural obstacles away so that there can be nothing that gets in the way of Jesus' destiny as he moves to Jerusalem for his death and resurrection. As we get close to Christmas, as we get close to the birth, so to speak, of the light of the world, we see that we anticipate that in the lessons that are read, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Magnificat. We're anticipating the joy of Christmas. Now one of the great questions here is the question of why is Christmas on December 25th. Well, there are two theories here. One of the theories is that Christmas is on December 25th because this is when the ancient world celebrated the winter solstice. Now, perhaps you know the pagan world had a huge feast called the saturnalia, at this time of year, that celebrated the death of the darkness and the beginning of the birth of the light. This, of course, is the shortest day. This is the time when it gets the darkest, and now, the light is going to get larger and larger so they celebrated this transition with a huge feast. Now Christians said to themselves, now wait a minute. We are the ones who should celebrate the light. We have the light of the world. The light is born now in Christ so we see in Christ the birth of this light so let's celebrate the end and the beginning in Christ who is the light of the world which is why Christmas is the season of Light which is why Epiphany is a continuation of this imagery of light where Jesus, the light of the world, is manifest, is revealed. And we celebrate this light all the way until Lent. Now I believe this reason for Christmas being on this date is probably very true, but I also believe it's not the only reason because there's another theory. And I think it goes alongside of this that indicates why Christmas is on December 25th. In the ancient world, they believed that Jesus was crucified on March 25th. That was the day of his crucifixion. And not only for Jews and Christians, but even for the Roman world, they never kept track of when people were born. The usually kept track of only the date that they left this world, the day they died. And so they did a very simple arithmetic there, they said, well the day in which a person dies should be the day in which they entered the world, the day in which they were conceived and so what was important for them was that one day in which they marked both the conception and the death of a person. So if Jesus died on March 25th, then that must have been the day in which he was conceived. So that is why now, today, in our church calendar, March 25th is the Annunciation, the annunciation of the birth of the Christ child to Mary by the angel Gabriel. Now you count nine months after March 25th and what do you get? December 25th. That's one of the other reasons why we think Christmas is on December 25th. But notice how significant this is. By doing this, what do early Christians do? They unite the incarnation, the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary with the atonement, Jesus' death. When we look at the structure of the church here, we're going to see that the two scandals of the Christian faith from the Roman pagan point of view, from the unbelieving world�s point of view, is that God would take flesh and that this God would die. Christians took these two great scandals, these two stumbling blocks, and they made them Christmas and Easter as the two most important parts of the church year. Next year, 2005, a most remarkable thing is going to happen, something that hasn't happened in decades, something that I think will happen once more perhaps in my lifetime then won�t happen again until the end of the century, and that is this: that Good Friday is going to occur on March 25th, that the day in which Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit is the same day in which we recognize that Jesus died. When you look now at Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, you must see them as a season itself. Advent prepares for Christmas, which is the climax of that season. And Epiphany is the continuation of the climax. And Epiphany is one of those wonderful seasons in which we see Jesus revealed to us. That's what epiphany means, revelation, manifestation, that Jesus is revealed to us now as the very Son of God. In our new church year calendar, we begin Epiphany after the coming of the wise men with the baptism of our Lord where we hear the voice of the Father say, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And after seeing a series of miracles and teachings of Jesus throughout the Epiphany season, we end the Epiphany season with the transfiguration where the Father says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Epiphany is framed by the voice of the Father that acknowledges to us who Jesus is, the very Son of God with whom he is well pleased. Epiphany ends with the Transfiguration because before we plunge into the valley of the shadow of Lent, we have a glimpse over Lent to Easter by seeing in Jesus' transfigured body, a glimpse of the glory that we shall see at Easter. If you look at the diagram I have of the church here, you can see how the Transfiguration has this anticipation of Easter because it is, in a sense, the same thing as Easter where we see God's glory revealed in Christ fully and completely, once in the Transfiguration, later on in his resurrected body. But as soon as Epiphany is over, as soon as we have celebrated the Transfiguration, as soon as we have said goodbye to the alleluias, we plunge now with Jesus into Lent where we go with Jesus into his journey into Jerusalem. Lent, as I said before, is a time of preparation for baptism first and foremost. And we do that by being enlisted in the battle with Christ against Satan. In all the lectionaries, the first lesson from the gospels in Lent I is a lesson of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness. There we see some of the great themes of Lent and the church year proclaimed. There we see Jesus defeating Satan by the word of God, a glimpse of this ultimate defeat on the cross where when he says, it is finished, he means that he has conquered Satan once and for all. There we see the image of Jesus journeying into the wilderness and we with him as we fight the battle alongside of him. The Psalm of Lent I, Psalm 91, which is the Soldier�s Psalm, where we are enlisted with Christ in this battle and in this journey. This is the time where we now, in repentance and faith, see ourselves as having the same destiny as Jesus, death and resurrection in him. And all Lent long, we move with Jesus to this destiny as we confess our sins, as we receive his absolution, as we prepare in repentance in a penitent way for the celebration of the great Easter events. Lent is 40 days to mark the 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness, to mark the 40 years of the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness of Sinai. And those are times of reflection for us, times for us to think about our baptism, times to think about our lives, times to think about how we must come before God and confess our sense When we come to what the early Christians called great week, what we call Holy Week, we are now in those final stages before we reach the second climax of the church year. Notice that the second season of the church year, like the first season, has a season of preparation, Lent, the climax on Easter Sunday, and then the continuation of that climax all through the Easter season, the great fifty days, where we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord until Pentecost. Holy Week was the time where the catechumens engaged in intense catechesis, three hours every morning where they go through the texts and be prepared for their baptism on Saturday night, which was Sunday for them during the Easter Vigil. It was during this time that the whole church in the early Christian communities would go through numerous liturgies of prayer and word and song as they prepared for these events. In Jerusalem, they would parade from all the churches during this time where all the holy events took place for Palm Sunday, or even the day before, they would be in the * lazareum, where Lazarus was raised from the dead, Palm Sunday on the Mount of Olives, and then, of course, Maundy Thursday, the place of the cross on Good Friday, the place of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. The great three days of Easter are the days in which Jesus died, the day of preparation for the Sabbath, as it is called in the Scriptures, the day that Jesus is laid to rest in the tomb where he takes his Sabbath rest, and then the day in which he rises from the dead. These three days are called the Triduum because these are the great three days of the church year. And if you look at the church year, what you essentially see is the flow of the creed, the flow of the Nicene Creed and the flow of our own incorporation and participation in Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Our baptismal life is what those three days are about. Now, it's not a coincidence that Easter takes place in the spring because just as Christmas is around the death of the light and its rebirth, Easter is about the rebirth of creation. This is when in the springtime we see now that God is bringing about a resurrection in the world in which we live. We see the crocus as the first sign of that spring. We see that the grass gets green and the leaves come on the tree and the flowers bloom. It is new life. It is baptism. It is resurrection time. Easter is the time we celebrate the goal of the entire church year. This is why it is the great celebration of our life together in Christ, not only on a weekly basis, but on a yearly basis. And those three days where we celebrate Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, are days that are for us a recognition of our own baptism. In the early baptismal fonts, they used to have steps down into a font where they would be immersed and then steps up on the other side. This was to show that we descend into a tomb and rise up again out of that tomb to a new life. Early Christians used to be immersed three times in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, but also for the three days that Christ laid in the tomb, that day when he's buried at the end of Good Friday, the Sabbath rest, and the third day, and then rising up out of that tomb on the other side where they would be clothed with a robe of righteousness. The Easter season is called The Great Fifty Days because it is the number of the end times. Fifty is an eschatological number. Seven times seven, plus that one eschatological day, seven ,being the number of perfection, times seven, the number of perfection, plus the one eschatological day. So for the early Christians, Easter was fifty days of celebration, celebration of the resurrection and the new life in Christ. On the 40th day, they recognized Jesus' ascension into heaven, which was a remarkable festival in the church year because here, now, Christ, in his ascension, enthrones us in heaven with him. But then on the 50th day, after those ten days of in betwixt and in between when Christ had ascended and the spirit had not yet come, those disciples must've been at sea about what was going to happen. When the Spirit comes on Pentecost, now everything makes sense, and we now enter into the time of the church because Jesus is now present by his Spirit. One of the things we confess as Lutherans, as biblical Christian, is that we can never separate the Spirit from Christ. Wherever Jesus is, there is his spirit. Wherever the Spirit is, there is Jesus. And if the church year, up until Pentecost, is about Jesus, the church year after Pentecost is about how Jesus has become a people as the Church of Jesus Christ. Pentecost now is all about the church. And again, if you look at nature, after Pentecost, which was one of the harvest feasts, they would replant another harvest. And in Indiana where I live, after Pentecost, during the whole Pentecost season, you can see that the fields are getting green. The corn is growing. The soybeans are beginning to mature. The fields are getting ripe for the harvest. That is why the color of Pentecost is green because it's all about the church now developing itself as that which is going to give birth to many who are going to be harvested in the judgment as part of God�s eschatological kingdom. Pentecost is the season of the church because it is the season in which we see the great evangelical mission of the church being expressed. And the church is going out into the highways and byways fulfilling that great commission of our Lord in Matthew 28 where he tells us to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pentecost is a long season. We sometimes even sense that we get lost in Pentecost. But that is the way it is now in the church. We have these days that run one into another as we continue to do what God has called us to do, to go out into the world and bear witness to him, to bear in our bodies who he is, to bear his mercy, his compassion, his forgiveness, and his love. And then as we get toward the end of the church here, and the days begin to grow dark again, we do it all over again. Now in summary, what we have here is a beautiful way of recognizing who we are. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, the first of the seasons is about the incarnation, birth, and the revelation of Jesus Christ as the very Son of God, the Creator come to his creation to bring in a new creation through teaching and miracles. Then during Lent and Easter, we see that this child, who was born, must die but also rise again to a new life. And Lent and Easter is at the center of our faith because it focuses on Jesus' sacrifice, his atonement, and his resurrection. These two seasons, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Lent and Easter is what we call the festival season of the year where we focus in on the life of Christ. But then the second part of the church year is one long season of the church, Pentecost, where the life of Christ is now embodied in us, his people. And the church, as his body, is the most beautiful representation of his presence in the world where he shows us so clearly who he is by manifesting Himself in us.