By Derek Olsen
One day at the beginning of a new semester a student caught me after my class on the Church Year. She came from a non-liturgical Black Church tradition and found the discussions of the liturgical year and its practices fascinating, but still a bit foreign.
“So, the Resurrection of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit are at the heart of our faith, right? Why cram them into one little season? I mean, we celebrate them every single Sunday—why wouldn’t you?”
“You’re absolutely right,” I responded, “That the Resurrection and the Spirit are too important for just one season. And I’d add in the Incarnation and the Crucifixion as well. These are at the heart of our faith and we’d be misunderstanding it if we weren’t keeping them central all through the year. Actually, in the Episcopal prayer book,” I said, gesturing to my ’79 Book of Common Prayer, “Every Sunday is kept as a feast of the resurrection and every Friday is kept as a memorial of the Crucifixion.”
“Okay—then how exactly do the seasons fit in then?” she asked.
“Think of the seasons as lenses,” I said. “We always proclaim the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and the sending of the Spirit, but as the year progresses, we look at all four through the lenses that the seasons give us. It gives us different and more rounded perspectives when we can look at the Resurrection through the lens of Advent—that is, seeing it from a position of waiting and expectation. It means something else to look at the Incarnation through the lens of Lent—knowing that in the midst of our limitations, finitude, and sin that we have a Lord who was willing to take on limitation and death on our behalf. So looking at them through the whole year we get a better sense of the wonder of each of them.”
I think about that exchange often when we change liturgical seasons. It reminds me of the work that I need to do as we pass from one liturgical time to another. Every season I need to take my own advice to her and spend some time pondering what the seasons reveal about the whole of our faith when we take the time to connect the dots.
I love Advent. It’s our great season of eschatology, the season when we contemplate and await the in-breaking of divine power into our little worlds in a way that prefigures the great consummation in which we are fully joined into God’s reality. We consider the historical moments that have given us glimpses—the Annunciation and the Incarnation. We consider the poetry of promise in the words of the prophets who proclaimed the terrifying presence of God and the immanence of his coming in oracles and visions. We consider the promised Second Coming and the consummation of Christ’s victory. We consider our readiness to be a people who dwell in the very presence of God. And all of these considerations—pointed primarily towards Christmas and the Incarnation, yes—give us new eyes to see not only the Incarnation but the rest of God’s redemptive action as well.
One of the ways that the prayer book has helped us to do this is with the collect for Advent. In the English 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the collect for the First Sunday of Advent is appointed to be read after the Collect of the Day throughout the season. Every day at Morning and Evening Prayer, every Sunday through the four Sundays of Advent, this prayer would be read to keep Advent before our eyes. While our prayer book doesn’t do this, it’s an admirable custom that I’ve found profitable. Here’s the collect:
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Neatly weaving together images from Romans 13:11-14 (the Epistle used on this date for over a thousand years) and Luke 21:25-31 (the Gospel for the Second Sunday) with the themes of both the Incarnation and the Last Judgment, this collect stands as one of Cranmer’s greatest compositions. In the space of a few words, it captures the essence of the season and directs our spiritual course for the time—reflecting on the darkness that we put into action and praying for the grace that will change our darkness into light to be ready for Christ at his coming—as a baby at Bethlehem, as Judge on the last day, and as Savior into our waiting hearts.
Derek Olsen is in the final stretch of completing a Ph.D. in New Testament (with a healthy side of Homiletics) at Emory University. He has taught seminary courses in biblical studies, preaching, and liturgics; he currently resides in Maryland. His reflections on life, liturgical spirituality, and being a Gen-X/Y dad appear at Haligweorc.