Notes before beginning
I am going to try to respond to the daily lectionary readings during Advent. This is partially to give myself a structure as we start into the Advent season and partially just to see if I can do it. Before we begin, it seems a few notes are in order.
For those not familiar with the liturgical church year, it begins with Advent which lasts four weeks. Christmas is celebrated for twelve days followed by Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the magi to the Christ child. Following Epiphany comes the first section of Ordinary time, a time without a specific festival day. Lent, lasting for forty days is next, starting on Ash Wednesday. Lent ends with Holy Week, culminating with Easter. Easter is then celebrated for fifty days... forty days from resurrection to ascension, then ten more days until Pentecost. After Pentecost comes the second, and longer period of Ordinary time which lasts until Advent rolls around again.
The lectionary is a proscribed set of Scripture readings either for Sundays or for every day. Often the texts are taken from the Old Testament and the New Testament, and are designed so that a good chunk of the Bible is read over the course of the lectionary cycle. I will be using the Revised Common Lectionary, since I come from a Reformed tradition and that is where I am most comfortable. The Revised Common Lectionary has a three year cycle, with 2018/2019 taking its reading from Year C.
That all is a lot of details, but I've found that unless you grew up with a more formal church style, the historical way that the church divided and celebrated the year is not well known. While I happily attend a non-liturgical church, I find I miss some aspects of having a more formal liturgy. I also think it is important to know how our brothers and sisters in Christ though about and lived through the church year. Just because we may not do things the same way now, does not mean there is not something we can learn from them.
One more thing that probably should be said. The Christian season of Advent is more penitential. It is probably closer to the attitude of Lent than it is our current all out holiday festivity frenzy. While I'm as guilty as anyone in participating in the frenzy, I sometimes wonder if going back to a more liturgical form of celebration would help tame some of the excess craziness and stress. That would be preparing for Christmas in a more subdued and heart based way, and then have twelve days of celebration. I haven't been able to bring myself to do it, though. It would be significantly swimming upstream, and also changing ways we have done things for a very long time. It's still interesting to think about, though.
So that's all the preliminary information. I'll post the readings each morning, and then (hopefully), have something to say about them. We'll see how it goes. This is a great big experiment.
For those not familiar with the liturgical church year, it begins with Advent which lasts four weeks. Christmas is celebrated for twelve days followed by Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the magi to the Christ child. Following Epiphany comes the first section of Ordinary time, a time without a specific festival day. Lent, lasting for forty days is next, starting on Ash Wednesday. Lent ends with Holy Week, culminating with Easter. Easter is then celebrated for fifty days... forty days from resurrection to ascension, then ten more days until Pentecost. After Pentecost comes the second, and longer period of Ordinary time which lasts until Advent rolls around again.
The lectionary is a proscribed set of Scripture readings either for Sundays or for every day. Often the texts are taken from the Old Testament and the New Testament, and are designed so that a good chunk of the Bible is read over the course of the lectionary cycle. I will be using the Revised Common Lectionary, since I come from a Reformed tradition and that is where I am most comfortable. The Revised Common Lectionary has a three year cycle, with 2018/2019 taking its reading from Year C.
That all is a lot of details, but I've found that unless you grew up with a more formal church style, the historical way that the church divided and celebrated the year is not well known. While I happily attend a non-liturgical church, I find I miss some aspects of having a more formal liturgy. I also think it is important to know how our brothers and sisters in Christ though about and lived through the church year. Just because we may not do things the same way now, does not mean there is not something we can learn from them.
One more thing that probably should be said. The Christian season of Advent is more penitential. It is probably closer to the attitude of Lent than it is our current all out holiday festivity frenzy. While I'm as guilty as anyone in participating in the frenzy, I sometimes wonder if going back to a more liturgical form of celebration would help tame some of the excess craziness and stress. That would be preparing for Christmas in a more subdued and heart based way, and then have twelve days of celebration. I haven't been able to bring myself to do it, though. It would be significantly swimming upstream, and also changing ways we have done things for a very long time. It's still interesting to think about, though.
So that's all the preliminary information. I'll post the readings each morning, and then (hopefully), have something to say about them. We'll see how it goes. This is a great big experiment.
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