The Church Calendar, Pt. 2: Church Holidays We Celebrate at Christ Church Bellingham
In this article, we outline the holidays within the calendar that we celebrate, and how that looks in practice. Our hope is that you are able to join in the celebrations with more understanding and thus find them to be more fruitful experiences.
In our previous article on the church calendar, we addressed the history, tradition, Scriptural arguments, and importance of the church calendar, ending with an explanation of why our church (Christ Church Bellingham) follows the church calendar.
In this article, we outline the holidays within the calendar that we celebrate, and how that looks in practice. Our hope is that you are able to join in the celebrations with more understanding and thus find them to be more fruitful experiences.
Advent
Advent is the beginning of the Christian year and marks the time when Christians remember the anticipation for the coming of Christ. The word “advent” comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival.” The word has its roots in the New Testament Greek word parousia, meaning “appearing,” which Christians have understood to refer both to Christ’s first coming (his birth) and his second future coming (when he comes again to judge the living and the dead). Thus, Advent dually represents our remembrance of Christ’s first coming and our anticipation of his second.
Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and comes with a number of liturgical changes to mark the season.
First, the liturgical fabric in the sanctuary is changed to purple, which stands for Christ’s royalty.
Second, each week we sing a portion of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” which blends petition and praise regarding Christ’s past and future redemptive work. We move through a different verse each week until we combine them all on our Christmas Eve service. We also replace the “Gloria Patri” with the “Franklin Gloria,” which borrows words of praise from Luke’s birth narrative (2:14). For our Sunday worship music, we intentionally pick other Advent hymns to sing as well, such as “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.”
Third, each Sunday we light an Advent candle. The first candle, which is purple, symbolizes hope. It remembers Isaiah and the prophets who foretold the birth of Christ. The second candle, also purple, represents peace. It remembers the message of the choir of angels that proclaimed, “Peace on earth, good will among men.” The third candle, which is pink, symbolizes joy. This candle remembers the joy the shepherds felt, and the good news of great joy that would be for all the people (Luke 2:10). The fourth candle, which is purple, symbolizes love. With the lighting of this candle, we reflect on the great love that God has for us, which is made apparent in the birth of His Son. The fifth and final candle, known as the Christ Candle, is white and symbolizes the life of Christ. It is lit on Christmas Eve and marks the end of Advent, for the period of waiting is over—Christ has come.
We mark the end of Advent at sunset with our Christmas Eve candlelight service. There we hear Scripture readings and sing traditional Christmas carols, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. The service culminates with the lighting of the Christ Candle, the flame of which is then distributed among the whole congregation, symbolizing the light of Christ going out into the world. The service concludes with our congregation singing “Silent Night” by candlelight.
Christmastide
While many Christian traditions have truncated the season of Christmas to only Christmas Day, Christmastide actually begins on Christmas Day (Dec 25th) and lasts for twelve days, ending on Epiphany (Jan 6th). During Christmastide, the liturgical fabric in our sanctuary is white, symbolizing the purity of Christ.
Christ Church Bellingham is beginning a tradition of gathering for worship on Christmas morning. (Last year Christmas fell on a Sunday, and it was sweet to be together as a church, so we want to keep gathering.) We value this time, as it defines Christmas Day as a day of worship rather than a time focused solely on presents and toys. This is a simple service where we sing Christmas carols and listen to the story of Christ’s birth in celebration. We also provide hot cocoa and spend time in fellowship. This service kicks off Christmastide, during which our children are not in school, and we close our church office for much of the time to prioritize rest and family.
Christmastide ends with the Feast of Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Magi. We celebrate Epiphany on the Sunday closest to January 6th. This is the last Sunday on which Christmas carols are sung, and we sing “We Three Kings” to recognize the visit of the Magi. Many of our church members will gather together in homes to eat and sing together, and someone typically hosts a large bonfire for burning Christmas trees. It is a joyous way to mark the end of Christmastide.
First Season of Ordinary Time
After Epiphany, the church calendar enters a month-long period of Ordinary Time. This is the first period of Ordinary Time in the church calendar, and it is symbolized in our sanctuary by changing the liturgical fabric to green. During this time, there is a focus on the early ministry of Jesus. Our liturgical focus in our Sunday services is on the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing Jesus’ key teachings. This liturgical focus continues into Lent.
Lent
After this period of Ordinary Time, we enter the season of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday. We mark this season by changing the liturgical fabric to purple in our sanctuary.
The term Lent comes from an Old English word lencten, which meant “springtime,” or “spring.” Within this word is the idea that Lent is a “spiritual spring,” a time of renewal, where spiritual fervor grows. Lent consists of forty days, excluding Sundays, beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding with Holy Saturday. This is to mirror the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted by Satan in preparation for beginning his ministry. Thus, Lent is a time of both fasting and spiritual discipline.
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. As a church, we gather on the evening of Ash Wednesday for a worship service where we confront our own mortality and confess our sin before God as a church community. As a part of our liturgy during the Ash Wednesday service, congregants come forward to receive the mark of the cross on their foreheads, which the pastors apply using ash and saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance has its roots in the Old Testament (Esther 4:1; Job 42:6; Daniel 9:3; Jonah 3:5‐6).
During the season of Lent we commend the practices of fasting and prayer. There are many variations for fasting, such as fasting for a full day once a week or not eating until 2pm on certain days. If fasting from food is not an option, you could give up other things, such as social media, alcohol, or sweets. As for prayer, we encourage a daily habit, especially during Lent. Often we will provide a Lent guide for daily worship and reflection to guide your prayers. Additionally, many of the songs we sing during Sunday services in Lent are focused on sin, mortality, repentance, and Christ’s passion. For example, instead of singing the “Gloria Patri” as we do for much of the church calendar, we sing the “Kyrie” and “Sanctus.”
Lent overlaps with Holy Week, which follows the final week of Jesus’ life leading up to his death on the cross. Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It’s called Palm Sunday because the crowds laid palm branches down to welcome him, their long-awaited Messiah. For our liturgy that morning, we emphasize themes and language from the triumphal entry narrative and from relevant portions of the Old Testament.
The next church holiday in Holy Week is Maundy Thursday, which officially ends the season of Lent. Maundy Thursday commemorates the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples, and to celebrate it we hold a worship service wherein we position chairs in our sanctuary to center around the Communion table. The emphasis is unity and love, themes prominent in Jesus’ final words to his disciples before his passion. We also take the Lord’s Supper together in a highly communal manner.
On the next day of Holy Week, we celebrate Good Friday. “Celebration” is a bit of a misnomer, as the Good Friday service is purposefully somber. The liturgical fabric is changed to black to symbolize the death of Christ on the cross. The hymns are mournful and emphasize themes of sin, suffering, death, and dereliction. The Scripture readings tell the story of Christ’s suffering, from his arrest to his crucifixion and burial. The conclusion of the service is marked with silence. The whole of the service is intentionally somber and dark in tone to contrast the death of Christ with the coming resurrection.
Eastertide
Easter Sunday is the most important day of the Christian calendar, as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—the event on which our faith is grounded. The liturgical fabric in our sanctuary is changed to white and the whole service has a celebratory tone. We often will have a choir during our worship services, and we will sing many songs rejoicing in Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and Satan.
After Easter we move into Eastertide, a forty-day period commemorating Jesus’ time on earth after his resurrection and before his ascension. During this season, our liturgical focus is on the Lord’s Prayer. In his ascension, Jesus becomes the perfect mediator and advocate before God the Father, so during our Sunday services we work through a catechism on the Lord’s Prayer to learn better how to pray as Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
Eastertide concludes with Ascension Sunday, which is the Sunday following the end of forty days past Easter. During this worship service we remember the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven to rule and reign at the right hand of God the Father.
Pentecost Sunday
On the Sunday immediately following Ascension Sunday we commemorate the birth of the Christian church at Pentecost. Pentecost Sunday commemorates the receiving of the Holy Spirit by the early believers and Peter’s sermon to the gathered multitude in Jerusalem, after which the church grew by thousands of people. We change the liturgical fabric in the sanctuary to red for Pentecost Sunday to symbolize the Holy Spirit. We also host an annual event called Feast, scheduled on or near Pentecost Sunday. At Feast, we simply celebrate our life together and the God who made us one. We gather as an entire church outdoors and share a meal, a time of singing, and hours of open play. (The red liturgical fabric is also used for ordination services, where Teaching Elders are ordained and commissioned to go out into ministry.)
Second Season of Ordinary Time
The Sunday after Pentecost Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and this marks the beginning of Ordinary Time (or Kingdomtide). This season focuses on the life of the church in the midst of the world. This season of Ordinary Time is bookended by Trinity Sunday and Christ the King Sunday, both of which are marked by white fabric in our sanctuary. (Between the two, the fabric is green.) Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of the Godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While for much of Ordinary Time, we profess our faith using the Apostles’ Creed, for Trinity and Christ the King Sundays we use the Nicene Creed. Christ the King Sunday (which is the final Sunday before Advent) celebrates the messianic kingship and sovereign rule of Jesus Christ over all creation.
During Ordinary Time our church continues our regular liturgy. Why is the season called “Ordinary”? Here is a helpful explanation. (Note: where it says “severe penance,” we would say confession and contrition, since we reject the doctrine of penance.)
Ordinary Time is called "ordinary" not because it is common but simply because the weeks of Ordinary Time are numbered. The Latin word ordinalis, which refers to numbers in a series, stems from the Latin word ordo, from which we get the English word “order.” Thus, the numbered weeks of Ordinary Time, in fact, represent the ordered life of the Church—the period in which we live our lives neither in feasting (as in the Christmas and Easter seasons) or in severe penance (as in Advent and Lent), but in watchfulness and expectation of the Second Coming of Christ.1
Most of the years of biblical history are “in-between” years—years between extraordinary movements of God (for example, the 400 years between returning from exile and Christ’s coming). Similarly, much of the Christian life happens between our celebrated Christian holidays. As a church during this season, our pastors will preach through a New Testament epistle, as these letters were directed to the life of the church in waiting for the Second Coming—the next extraordinary act of God.
Our Sermon Schedule
As I mentioned, during the summer Ordinary Time, we as a church preach through a New Testament letter, as these letters provide direction to the church. For other parts of the Christian calendar, we intentionally preach through other sections of the Bible.
From the end of summer through Advent, the season leading to Christ’s birth, we preach through the Old Testament, which looks forward to the coming of the Messiah.
After Christmas, we preach through a section of one of the Gospels, as this time of the church calendar is focused on the life of Christ and his ministry.
After Easter, we often do a four-Sunday topical sermon series where our pastors address a particular doctrine or issue that is important for our church during that season.
Approaching our sermon schedule in this manner stays true to the time of the church calendar in which we find ourselves as a church, while also enabling us to cover all parts of God’s Word in their appropriate seasons.
Calendar & Culture
Across this two-part series, we have explained the historical background of the church calendar, defended its usefulness, and explained what it looks like in practice at Christ Church Bellingham. Our hope is that you come to appreciate the church calendar and what it offers. We aim to build a distinct Christian culture in our church that can only be sustained by deeply rooted traditions–traditions rooted in the story of redemption through Jesus Christ. We pray that our church’s deep-rooted traditions would then have a profound impact on our surrounding community.
As Pastor Nate wrote in a previous article:
The liturgy of worship, the church calendar, and the Rule of Faith are ways that the Lord gives clear boundaries to our family. If the church is a house, these are well built walls that protect us from the storms outside and comfort those on the inside. We all need to know, “This is what I believe. This is the theological tradition that has withstood the test of time and that Christians across centuries have agreed is the teaching of the Bible.” There is security and clarity in this approach to the Christian faith—so let's embrace it.
We believe there is power in the songs we sing, the catechisms we recite, the Word of God we hear, and the joyful celebrations of our people. May we find, as we give ourselves to these weekly and annual liturgies, that we enter more and more fully into the story of redemption that God is unfolding.
ThoughtCo. "What Ordinary Time Means in the Catholic Church." Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/ordinary-time-in-the-catholic-church-542442 (accessed December 5, 2023).
