The Surprising God

This is part 2 of a series looking at the Western Christian year (liturgical calendar). For other posts in the series, click a number:  1 , 3 , 4 , 5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 . (Updated 11/2021) The Western Christian worship year begins with Advent---a season spanning the four Sundays prior to Christmas (in 2021 the first Sunday of Advent is November 28). Robert E. Webber, writing about the meaning of Advent in Ancient Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year , shares this comment: Advent is the time when God breaks in on us with new surprises and touches us with a renewing and restoring power. In Christian-year worship and spirituality we call upon God for a new breaking in, a fresh outpouring of his Spirit. (p. 38) The Advent Season is a powerful and important reminder that God is not remote, aloof or uninvolved. It tells us that God has come, is coming and will come again ("advent" means "coming"). This truth helps offset a message that is pr

This is part 1 in a series looking at the Western Christian year (liturgical calendar). For other posts in the series, click a number: 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 . In this series, we'll take a journey through the Western Christian Calendar. Doing so will help us see how the ancient liturgy of the church helps us "inhabit" the gospel, which is the story of the Triune God's work for our salvation, centered on Jesus. I believe that this liturgy, rightly used, is of tremendous value in helping us understand (both cognitively and experientially) the gospel as viewed through the lens of an incarnational Trinitarian theology. Some thoughts about liturgy In this series, we'll be exploring the Christian worship year as presented in the liturgical calendar of the Western Christian Church---the calendar that serves as the organizing framework of  The Revised Common Lectionary   (RCL). The RCL shapes the liturgy of many Protestant and Anglican-Episcopalian denominatio