Advent, Christmastide, and a High Ecclesiology

On Sunday, December 7^th, I had the privilege of hearing a choir perform their annual Christmas music special at the First Baptist Church of a Mississippi City. The performance was predictable, but well done. There were traditional Christmas hymns intermixed with original songs, all performed wonderfully by the church choir and accompanied by an orchestra of mostly high school students. The songs were separated by narration that re-told the Christmas story and presented a basic plan of salvation to the congregation. Overall it was a solid program.

During the service, though, I had a recurring thought: “but it’s not Christmas…”

Yes, the sanctuary had been artfully decorated with garlands, candles, and other trappings of the Advent season.[1] But the performance of the Christmas music (and especially the accompanying narration) made it seem that Christmas had already come, that the “Silent Night” was passed, and that we should be reminded of the end-result of the Incarnation, that is, Christ’s crucifixion. It was as though the entire event was meant for a late-night Christmas Eve service. It would have been perfect for Christmas Vigil, in fact.

I realize that I am in the extreme minority among my Baptist peers when it comes to observing the Church Year, but my response to the service was more about our cultural relationship to Christmas than it was a desire to implement the Church Year in this local congregation.

I think I’m getting tired of synthesizing Christmas joy. There I sat, on December the seventh, participating in a performance that asked me to pretend that this bright, warm morning was Christmas Eve/Day. I was having to fake it. I do not mean this pejoratively; I simply mean that I was aware of the dissonance between the performance and the actual celebration of Christmas.

I need Advent. I need a time to reflect on my own need for the Incarnation. After all, since the last time the Church concentrated on the concept of “Emmanuel” I’ve certainly learned something new, forgotten something true, and sinned a great deal. I need Advent. But even if I emphasize the Hanging of the Greens, the Advent weeks, the candles, the readings and the rest, I’m bombarded by the earlier-than-ever Christmas shopping season, the radio station that my neighbor plays all day with its Christmas music, and Christmas parties for school and church.

Here’s a reality that I’m struggling with: we’ve allowed our work, school, and family schedules to divorce Christmas from the church, even in the church. Why do we have the annual Christmas performances of our choirs on December the 7^th? Because our schedules and priorities have made the church give up one of its most important days. We would never be able to host a Christmas choral performance on Christmas Day. We couldn’t sync up the words we’re singing with the actual observation of Christ’s birth because, well, we’d rather be with family than at church. In truth, I’d rather be at home in my Christmas pajamas watching my daughter open presents than singing at church in a rented tux. That’s why I’m struggling with it: I’m tired of the dissonance but I don’t want to change.

I wrote several months ago[2] about the importance of Eastertide as a balance to Lent. I think that a similar argument could be made for the intentional delay of celebrating Christmas until after Advent. I realize that such a delay is impractical given the sheer momentum of our cultural observance of the Christmas season. However, it may be the solution to my feelings of synthesizing joy. I’d really just like to wait until Christmas to open my presents.

This is all wrapped up in what is becoming my personal theological project: a high ecclesiology for Baptists. I want to place a higher value on the believer’s participation in the congregation. I want the believers to make the choice to resist the cultural forces that divorce Christmas from the Incarnation, and thus the “season of giving” from the congregational celebration of God’s Gift to humanity. I’ve found some success in introducing Advent into my local congregations, but there is still the parallel “Christmas Season” that takes energy away from the heart’s contemplation of our need for and God’s provision of a Savior.

I want the church to matter more to Baptists, and I want it to matter in such a way that one day, against even my own preferences, we could sing “Joy to the World” on the same day that we set aside to remember Christ’s birth.

---

[1] The church itself does not observe the Church Year, but it certainly participates in the traditional de-facto liturgical calendar of the SBC.

[2] http://revbrock.blogspot.com/2014/04/on-eastertide.html

On Eastertide

I am still relatively new to the practice of observing the Church Year and worshipping in a congregation guided by the Revised Common Lectionary. As a Baptist of Southern Baptist heritage I was largely unaware that there were seasons through which the Church progressed each year; actually I was only aware of Advent, and that was because the Catholic church in town placed these massive oil candles in the churchyard during that time of year.

Ever since Dr. Terry York presented the tradition of the Church Year and the cycle of the Lectionary to me in his Christian Worship class, though, I’ve been increasingly convinced that such a rhythm of life and such a connection to the world-wide Christian communion is not only within the scope of my Baptist principles but also may help my generation of Baptist pastors move our congregation beyond the Fundamentalist/Moderate controversy on which we teethed.

My congregation’s practice of observing the Church Year has recently taken us into the wilderness of Lent with our Lord. During these six Sundays our congregation has taken great pains to concentrate on our need for God’s sustenance and provision. We have called out our sins and meditated on our sinfulness. We have concluded that we are in need of a Savior, for who can rescue us from this body of death? We journeyed, painstakingly, agonizingly, slowly toward the Cross.

We intentionally neglected the joy of Easter, a joy we know would come. We knew that the tomb would be empty, that the Lord would at last defeat death and open for us the path to eternal life. We ignored that as best we could, though, so as to know our need and our thirst for that Lord and for his Life. We seemed to be surrounded by death, by prayers of renewal and by songs of lament.

Easter came - oh Glory did it come! We sang; we SANG! We sang old Baptist hymns and Handel’s “Messiah.” We read John’s account of the resurrection and we prayed amidst the chirping of birds and the palpable new life of spring. We worshipped.

But then Easter ended.

I went home and scattered plastic eggs for my toddler to find; I ate lamb with my Greek family members; I napped. But after all of that I had to pack my bag and prepare for another week of reality. This time there was no Lenten restriction to help me hunger through the day - all was resurrected joy and consummation.

The Church Year calls this time “Eastertide.” The seven Sundays after Resurrection Day form a happy antithesis to the Lenten season: whereas Lent is denial and despondency, Eastertide is joy and astonishment and the heavy exhale of a people who no longer fear death. The Church Year makes Easter the hinge, the high-water-mark of the story of Jesus and of all Christian life. We have the tough, long slough to the Cross before and the downhill road back to Emmaus from the empty tomb.

The passages for Eastertide are the other side of the Easter story, too. Suddenly we find bold, testifying disciples where cowards had recently stood. We read of the Hebrew Scriptures being understood in light of a new revelation of God through Jesus Christ. We see the Church being born after preaching that this same miracle-working, Kingdom-proclaiming Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Easter did in fact end. The event that we celebrated last Sunday was one single moment in history. But the consequences, the fallout from that miraculous day take more than one sermon or Bible study to work out. Here, here is where we begin to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” Here, in Eastertide, is where we begin to understand our new, re-created, forgiven identities in Christ.

I think of this season of Eastertide as a return from exile. In the first chapters of Ezra we read of the return of the Babylonian captives to Jerusalem. Can you imagine the joy that spread throughout the community when word came down from Cyrus that they could return home? What a celebration! They were showered with gifts and money and good things with which to re-establish God’s Temple and their society. What a critical, hinge moment for the Exiles.

Ezra recounts that there was a great celebration once the Exiles returned. There were special offerings and festivals and sacrifices. Soon, though, people noticed that there was no foundation upon which to rebuild the Temple. The celebration had to be modulated and actual work had to begin. If the Exiles were to truly be reunited with their God, they would need to understand and address the consequences, the fallout of their return.

This is the season for Christians to address the cosmic, eternal, and ultimately personal meaning of Easter. This is the season to not only confess sin, but to deal with it. This is the season to no longer point out the rubble of former temples; this is the season to clear the land and build upon the One Foundation.

So, to borrow from the artist Bastille, “where to we begin? The rubble or our sins?” Let’s get to work. It’s Eastertide.