Thought for the week: Charting the church calendar with conviction and faith
I was brought up in a church where the church ‘calendar’ was regarded as really quite unimportant – apart from Christmas and Easter.
Lent (which ends today!) and Pentecost, were rarely mentioned. Even the Christmas and Easter celebrations focussed on the culmination of the period, with little thought being given to the weeks leading up to them.
However, these limited perspectives have changed quite a lot for me in the past few years. I have begun to appreciate in a new way the whole of Jesus’ ministry and indeed the whole revelation of God in the Bible – and by extension the nuances and cycles of the annual church calendar. The Bible may be a ‘library’, but it is also a huge single narrative of creation, sin, deliverance, resurrection, judgement and new creation. This ‘big picture’ view of the Bible is so very important since much of its substantial teaching and many of its big events seem to be increasingly relegated to the ‘back benches’ of our thoughts, and even within our churches.
But it really must be reclaimed if we are to reinvigorate our approach to the big ‘festivals’ of the church calendar, which are so much in danger of being hijacked by a societal emphasis on holidaying, family fun, and at this time of year the chocolate Easter eggs and roast lamb for dinner.
With the ‘season’ of Lent now ending, and with the glorious celebration of Easter Day tomorrow, I have found it energising to be invited to think rather more carefully why the church ‘calendar’ is so important, and to be taken to so many Old Testament scriptures. For example, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, was a reminder, amongst other things, of the creation story in Genesis 2.7 when God created us out of the dust of the earth. An important reminder of our profound mortality in the face of a sovereign and eternal God.
With Lent over, are we now in real danger of regarding Easter as just the few days that moved us from deep contemplation of the cross yesterday to the joy of the resurrection tomorrow? It is often not realised that in the church ‘calendar’, Easter lasts for the 50 days until Pentecost. Even the word itself means ‘fifty’ and has its Biblical roots in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16! During these 50 days of the 2025 Easter ‘season’, the Church is called to celebrate the resurrection, then remember on May 29 His ascension into heaven, and take delight in Pentecost itself on June 8.
Whilst enjoying our Easter eggs, let’s consciously take on board that these 50 consecutive days from tomorrow until Pentecost are designed to feed our souls well – very well - for the other 315 days of both the calendar year and the church year!