Should Lent and Advent swap?
Evangelicals have not ordinarily been strong on the liturgical year, possibly because of Paul's language about 'observing special days and months and seasons and years' in Gal four.10. Merely, like many evangelical Anglicans, I have come to appreciate the sense of rhythm and shape that calendar gives to the year; after all, even in our national life, in that location is a shape to the yr, shaped by the seasons of the agricultural year and now expressed in the blueprint of school terms.
Yet I have realised that there is something odd most the style that Appearance and Lent work in relation to Christmas and Easter. Broadly speaking, Appearance offers a sense of expectation, technically looking towards Jesus 'advent' when he comes once more, though in practice information technology functions as an anticipation of Christmas, understood as Jesus' 'first coming'. In a similar style, Lent functions as a season of reflection and repentance, in training for the commemoration of Jesus' death and resurrection at Easter. These seasonal emphases take an ancient origin; the early patterns of the catechumenate used Lent equally a period of preparation for baptisms at Easter.
This pattern does some strange things both to the use of Scripture and our theologies of Christmas and Easter.
1. Considering Advent is concerned with Jesus' 'second coming', we read passages from Mark 13 and Matthew 24 which set out Jesus' teaching about the devastation of the temple and Jesus'parousia (briefly in Mark and more fully in Matthew), teaching which comes at the end of Jesus' life and just earlier his trial and crucifixion. We then jump back to the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew for Christmas.
2. The design of Lent is based on Jesus' twoscore-day temptation in the wilderness, so we read about the beginning of Jesus' ministry—but then jump to the final days of his life and expiry. Although Luke tells usa that later Jesus' testing, the devil 'left him until an opportune time' (Luke 4.thirteen), no explicit link is made between this and the events around Jesus' passion; Gethsemane is a time of agonising, simply non of temptation (despite the filmThe Passion of the Christ forging a visual link with a ophidian in the garden).
3. In that location is a clear sense of apprehension surrounding the events of Jesus' birth, nearly notably in the 'Benedictus', Zechariah'southward hymn of praise in Luke 1.68–79. But a stronger theme is that of judgement and the need for repentance. And so Mary's praise in the Magnificat includes celebration that God 'has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts' (Luke i.51). Similarly, John the Baptist's ministry of grooming for the coming of Jesus is marked past a powerful telephone call to repentance and change (Luke 3.3–xiv)—indeed, all three synoptics sum up his ministry building as 'preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins' (Matt three.2, Mark 1.4, Luke 3.3). And when Jesus' appears, this too is his theme: 'The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the adept news' (Mark 1.15).
4. Conversely, whilst there are themes of repentance in relation to Jesus' passion, the stronger theme is of eschatological apprehension. Information technology is while Jesus is teaching exterior the city that the disciples ask nearly the timing and signs of the kingdom of God finally being restored (Matt 24.3 and parallels). The Passover supper has clear overtones of eschatological hope and anticipation, not least in Jesus' comment that 'I will not eat [the Passover] over again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God' (Luke 22.sixteen).
What do we miss by this potential misalignment of theological themes?
Perhaps the virtually obvious relates to the way nosotros think well-nigh Jesus' return. Because we way it 'the2d coming', we naturally pair information technology with Jesus'first coming in his incarnation. But the NT does neither of these things. Jesus' predictable kingly presence on globe at the finish of the age is never characterised as his2nd coming, merely as his return, and is the logical counterpart to his resurrection and ascension (his departure, or 'exodus', Luke 9.31). And the language of coming, or presence, clearly an important element in the nascency narratives ('he has come to his people and set them free' Luke 1.68). But it comes to a focus in Jesus' ministry; this is when the kingdom of God has 'fatigued near'. 'If I drive out demons by the finger/Spirit of God, and so the kingdom of God has come upon you' (Matt 12.28, Luke xi.twenty). Even in John, the idea of God 'tabernacling with the states' (John ane.14) is expressed not but in Jesus' being human, but in his actions in cleansing the temple, and his ministry including his several festival visits to Jerusalem.
We also then struggle to sympathise the kingdom language that permeates the Passion narratives. Because nosotros have dislocated the eschatological discourses, we fail to read the events of Easter through the linguistic communication of Daniel 7, the handing of the kingdom to the '1 with the advent of a son of man'. Yet this was clearly Jesus' agreement, declaring to the High Priest: 'You will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven' (Marker 14.62) every bit well as Stephen's (Acts 7.56). Peter similarly links the events of Easter, the Ascension and Pentecost firmly with OT eschatology (Acts 2.17–21).
It is as well interesting to note how Paul holds together the cross (and resurrection) and the breaking in of the age to come. At the stop of Gal half-dozen, Paul takes up the pen himself in order to sum up all he has been proverb (Gal six.11). The merely matter Paul wants to boast nigh is the cross of Christ (Gal vi.14)—what matters is not what he has done, but what has been done for him. And the religious distinction signified by the question of circumcision has been dissolved by the age to come up breaking into the present—it is the 'new creation' which puts an cease to such distinctions (Gal 6.15). This new creation has changed everything.
From a pastoral/ministerial indicate of view, we accept ended up with Christmas which has a sense of anticipation and excitement, equally we think about the gift of God to us in Jesus at his birth and his generosity. By dissimilarity, Easter represents a return to normal life, as it marks the end of slightly abnormal disciplines of Lent—a time when we focus on what sinners we are, and how much it cost Jesus to forgive united states of america. Yet in many ways, Scripture has this in reverse. We should tremble at the idea of God coming to us in justice (Christmas)—yet we are lost in wonder when we realise we are freely forgiven and invited to experience the wonders of the new age (Easter). That is perhaps why believers are just once labelled 'sinners' in the whole New Attestation (i Tim one.15).
I don't suppose the calendar will be revised any time soon. (Jubilant Jesus' nativity in September, when he was probably born, focussing on his life and ministry, and having Advent running up to Easter would do information technology!) But if we were able to communicate the challenge of Christmas, and the anticipation and celebration of Easter, it might relate the dynamics of organized religion more effectively to the wider world.
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