My latest article at Preaching Today went live this week. In it I explore the ways in which preaching can benefit from following the Christian year. What follows is an excerpt, but you can read the entire article here.
When I was a college student, I gave up wearing a watch. I would keep track of time by listening to the clock tower near the center of campus that intoned time at fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day. The bells created a rhythm that punctuated my day, giving order in the midst of my classes, relationships, and activities that reminded me of what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be going. Having a good sense of the time helped me move in the right direction.
The same is true in our spiritual life generally. The men of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12 are lauded as those “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chr. 12:32). The Apostle Paul tells believers to make “the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). We want to walk through the chronos of time so that we also understand what is happening and seize the kairos of time.
Certainly, we want to do this as individual followers of Christ, but we also want to journey this way as the community of God. In reading the Old Testament we encounter the annual cycle of festivals—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles—as well as the high holidays and weekly Sabbath, which served to orient God’s people to the story of his work in their life and history. While not bound to this cycle as followers of Jesus and as preachers, keeping time, both chronos and kairos, with Christ is vital to moving in the right direction. One of the best, time-tested spiritual practices to help us do this is the Christian year.
The Christian year, sometimes referred to as the church calendar or liturgical year, is a meaningful way for Christians to mark time not according to secular or political calendars but according to the life of Christ. In a systematic and narrative manner, the Christian year enables us to enter into the life of Christ and the church in a way that is spiritually formative for us. Through the Christian year we literally mold our days to Christ’s days through a series of celebrations and seasons.
[Read the rest of the article here.]
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