2010

How do we mark our experience of time? Perhaps it is appropriate to say “Happy New Year” (and I do wish you the best in 2010) but the church calendar began this year on Nov, 29- the first Advent Sunday. Most of us experience time as regulated by the academic calendar and draining cycle of the 40 hr work-week. Ancient agricultural societies marked time by the seasons of harvest and planting. Both of those are cycles defined by what Abraham Heschel calls the realm of “space.” They are metered by occurrences in the physical world and aim at the conquest of the physical realm. Judaism was unique in that it paced itself by marking historical events where God interacted with creation or his people by commemorating those events- reinforcing them in the communal consciousness: Sabbaths (God’s rest in creation), Passovers (exodus from Egypt), Feast of Weeks (Torah given at Sainai), Feast of the Booths (Israel’s dwelling in the wilderness). Heschel writes in The Sabbath, “To Israel, the unique events of historic time were spiritually more significant than the repetitive process in the cycle of nature” (2003, xv).

As Christians, we continue that tradition by marking the church calendar with the events of the life of Christ- Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, etc… The God of Israel is a God of events, a God of history (not things or places). Currently, we are towards the end of the season of Christmastide, the 12 days following Christmas in which we celebrate the coming of Light into the world. I invite you to join our community in an exploration of what it means to pace ourselves by something other than a paycheck or a degree or even another year. What does it mean to join with others in a communal memory of the events of the life of Christ on our behalf? How can we be shaped by taking on his faithfulness each day, each season- in joy and sorrow, death and resurrection?

We remember our story. Remain present with one another. And look forward with hope.