“Christianity is a religion that takes time seriously. History is where God is made known. In Christianity, the ultimate meaning of life is not revealed by universal and timeless statements, but by the concrete acts of God in time and space.” Christians have organized their lives around the acts of God in time. From the end of November through Christmas and Easter, to the beginning of summer, the Church orders time to follow the life of Christ.
How we keep time is telling about our priorities. How a person keeps his time is a good indication of what that person values in life. The church values Christ above all, therefore all of her time is centered around the anticipation of, the coming of, the life of, the death of, the resurrection of, and the ascension of Jesus. The Christian’s week begins with Sunday, the worship of the community of faith. Many have considered Sunday to be a part of the weekend. The week does not end with Sunday and begin with Monday. This thinking exalts work and play over God. Sunday begins the week, it shows that Christ has priority and precedes any activity in which me may engage in the following days.
When we look at that yearly calendar we see seasons such as Lent and Advent. But why observe these? Christian worship challenges us to approach time differently than the rest of the world. How a person orders and observes time can make or break him. “The calendar of the early church centered upon what God has done and continues to do through the Holy Spirit. In short, the church year is a constant reminder of gifts that we cannot create, but can only accept…the Christian year can help us sort out for ourselves our real priorities. Keeping time with the rhythms of the early church can be an important means of doing this.”
In many ways it is a means of making salvation history personal. Essentially the Christian calendar is always a “think/thank” process. We think about what God has done and we thank him. This kind of worship guards one from a subjective and shallow spiritual life, because he is continually being directed to God and what he has done in time.
In observing the Christian year, we relive in a sense what God has done for us. “The Christian year is a means by which we relive for ourselves all that matters of salvation history…these events become no longer simply detached data from the past but part of our own personal history as we relive salvation history by rehearsing it in our worship…each time, the year, week, and day push us a bit deeper into our encounter with God.” (Quotes taken from James Whites, Introduction to Worship, Abington Press, 2001)
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