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Lectionary Bible Study - Introduction to Advent

ADVENT AND THE CHRISTIAN YEAR

Advent is the beginning of the Christian Year.  The Christian Year and the Season of Advent both begin on the Sunday nearest to November 30.  Thus, the Christian Year does not follow the Julian calendar, beginning on January 1, but follows its own calendar, beginning in late November or early December.

What is the Christian Year?  It is simply the means by which the Christian Church, to some degree or another and in all of its traditions, remembers and celebrates the important events both in the life of Christ and in the church’s formation of itself as a community of believers.  Even the most nonliturgical of churches celebrate at least some part of the Christian Year – in that they will inevitably celebrate Christmas, Good Friday and Easter.  The most liturgical of churches – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican – will celebrate the Christian Year both in its entirety and throughout its worship.  Other churches – like the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Reformed will use it optionally in worship so that, for example, you can attend worship in some Presbyterian churches that follow the Christian Year assiduously while other Presbyterian churches will follow it from time-to-time.  But the point is that, to one degree or another, all churches will observe at least some portion of the Christian Year.

The formation of the Christian Year began at the very origins of Christianity while it was still a reform movement within Judaism.  The very earliest Church would gather as a Jewish community on the Jewish Sabbath to faithfully worship as all Jews would in their synagogues.  But they would also gather on “the first day of the week”, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, to study together the Hebrew scriptures in the light of their experience with Christ, to enjoy table fellowship together, but most of all, to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in obedience to their Lord (Acts 1-9).  This weekly gathering of Christians to celebrate that sacrament together – even before they had taken their leave of their Jewish heritage – was the origin of the Christian Year.

From that origin in the Christian communities of the earliest Church, the Christian Year began being built.  Likely, the first holiday (holy day) the Christians began celebrating as a special day within their year was Easter.  Good Friday would have soon followed, then Pentecost, then Christmas.  Gradually, more and more days of the year – both Sundays and other days (like the celebration of Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist) – were intentionally celebrated by the Church.  Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John and one of the earliest writers of the church after the writing of the New Testament, noted how the Christians celebrated Easter in the first century.  By the fifth century, the Christian Year was well established, and has continued developing ever since.1

The primary ways the Christian Year is celebrated today is through its seasons and the use of the lectionary.  The seasons (e.g., Lent, Advent, Epiphany, Pentecost) provide a vehicle by which churches celebrate significant moments in the life of Christ and use those moments as vehicles for reflection, prayer, the observance of disciplines, or for merry-making!  They will celebrate those seasons through music (e.g., Christmas carols, Easter hymns), through brightly colored banners, stoles and paraments (e.g., purple for Lent, white for Christmas and Easter, red for Good Friday – the choice of the appropriate color is obvious), and for some churches, through liturgies.  But the most important way the Church observes the Christian Year is through the lectionary.

The lectionary consists of three or four passages of scripture used in every worship service of the Christian Year.  Those churches that use three passages of scripture traditionally select from the lectionary an Old Testament lesson, a Gospel lesson and an Epistle lesson.  Those traditions that use four passages of scripture add to the lectionary one Psalm each Sunday.

The choice of scripture in the lectionary is for a three-year period.  Then it repeats itself.  By assiduously using the lectionary over its three-year period, a church will have covered almost the entirety of the Bible.  The homily or sermon for the day is to be built upon the lectionary readings, so that what is preached is an exploration and explanation of those scriptures made relevant to life in today’s world.  Thus, use of the lectionary guarantees that the preacher will not end up pursuing a theological “hobby-horse”, preaching on what most intrigues him or her.  Rather, the lectionary forces the preacher to always be encountering scripture that he or she might not normally study, and allow God to speak to that preacher and through that preacher God’s Word for God’s people on that Sunday.

THE SEASON OF ADVENT

The word “advent” simply means “coming” or “arrival”, and is from the Latin, adventus.2 Its use in Christianity is in reference to the coming of Jesus Christ.  Advent is the ecclesiastical season immediately before Christmas.  In Western Christendom, Advent begins on the Sunday closest to November 30, continues for four Sundays, and concludes with Christmas Eve.  In the Orthodox churches, Advent begins in the middle of November and is consequently a longer season.  In both traditions, Advent signals the beginning of the Christian Year – so it both signals the coming of Christ and the arrival of the “New (Christian) Year”!  Its liturgical color is purple.3

The purpose of Advent is to prepare Christians for the coming birth of Jesus Christ.  It stresses both the coming of Christ as a babe to the world and his coming again to rule the earth.  But it also stresses his continual coming into the hearts of those who “prepare him room”.  As Pascal so beautifully put it, “Jesus Christ and the apostles taught us that there would be two advents, one in lowliness to humble the proud, the other in glory to exalt the humble”.4 

All the liturgies, Advent hymns and the lectionary readings emphasize the doctrine of the Incarnation, and each Sunday has its separate emphasis on a portion of the Incarnation.  The first Sunday examines Christ’s coming in both Creation and in his Exaltation (the second coming).  The second Sunday reflects on the revelation of Christ throughout the scripture (that’s why this Sunday is normally Universal Bible Sunday, sponsored by the American and British Bible Societies).  The third Sunday looks at the coming of Christ prophetically, both examining the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist.  The final Sunday of Advent concentrates upon the coming of Jesus as a baby in Roman Israel.  Thus Advent ends with the attention of all the worshippers being drawn back to the manger and the birth of the Christ child.  Our reflections over the next four Sundays will follow this traditional format, as we examine the coming of Jesus “in lowliness to humble the proud, and in glory to exalt the humble”!