Tag Archives: Liturgical Calendar

Kevin Watson ~ Embracing A More Meaningful Holy Week

There are several moments from when I attended seminary at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., that have stayed with me in the years since I graduated. I remember the class “Methodist History and Doctrine” when Dr. Doug Strong’s summary of the Wesleyan way of salvation brought so many things together for me and made me feel in my bones that I was a Methodist; it was a major catalyst for where I am today. I remember Dr. Amy Oden reminding us in every class of “Church History” to ask the “so what?” question when we studied the past. I remember Dr. Sondra Wheeler’s passion for clear thinking and her ability to challenge students to be consistent and carefully consider and probe unexamined ethical assumptions. I remember Dr. Scott Kisker sending us out into the streets of D.C. to ask people about what grace meant to them. And I remember Dr. Kendall Soulen saying that you could put a host of different things as descriptors of Jesus, but at a very basic level the gospel was simply, “Jesus saves.”

I learned a lot in seminary and had some amazing teachers. Perhaps the image that has stayed with me more than any other came from Dr. Laurence Hull Stookey’s “Corporate Worship” course. Dr. Stookey was discussing the Christian calendar, and he was trying to help us see that the purpose of the Christian calendar was more than a circle where you do the same things over and over again. He described the Christian calendar as being like a spiral staircase: you come to the same point in the circle each year, but you have ascended higher up the stairs each year than you were the year before, or at least that is the purpose of the Christian calendar.

Dr. Stookey’s image of the Christian year being like a spiral staircase has helped me understand why Christian time is itself a means of grace. Every year we go through seasons of repentance, self-denial, and fasting. Each year we also go through seasons of celebration, rejoicing, and exultation. And every year we go through seasons of ordinary time when we are in a season of “regular” living.

I have come to appreciate many things about the Christian calendar. I appreciate the way the Christian calendar helps you practice what real life is like. As I have ascended the spiral staircase, I have become better at rejoicing – really celebrating –what God has done for the world – and for me. I have also learned how to grieve, to lament, to say no to myself and others, and to notice the heartbreaking extent to which things in the world are not okay. Perhaps what has surprised me the most about the major rhythms of the Christian calendar is that I have come to appreciate ordinary time, the gift of un-extraordinary days, even seasons when you experience normal rhythms and routines.

This week, Holy Week, is the highlight of the Christian calendar. To speak in a way that I suspect Dr. Stookey might not approve, Holy Week is like the Super Bowl of the Christian calendar. It is packed with meaning and is like the entire Christian year packed into one week.

Observing Holy Week has had a significant impact on my life. There are many different ways I could mark my growth as a follower of Jesus Christ, but a major part of my growth as a Christian came when I started to attend Holy Week services. Attending worship on Thursday and Friday of Holy Week is a highlight of my year as a follower of Jesus. Attending these services has prepared me to celebrate – really celebrate – the news that Jesus Christ is risen.

As I have, by the grace of God, ascended the spiral staircase of the Christian calendar, I have discovered that Christians (especially including myself) have a lot of room to grow in discipline and self-denial. I have been surprised to find that Christians are often actually worse at celebration than they are at self-denial. Easter is not one Sunday, it is eight weeks. But I have yet to attend a church that has had the celebratory stamina to throw an eight-week party. I have been to some amazing Easter Sunday services, but I don’t remember a single worship service from the sixth Sunday of Easter.

It is here that Dr. Stookey would want to remind us all that every Sunday is a little Easter. Christians celebrate (but do we really celebrate?) the resurrection every single Sunday.

I urge you to do whatever you have to in order to attend Holy Week services this week. We need to prepare to celebrate this Sunday. And God, in God’s graciousness, has given us an entire week to prepare to celebrate the best news the world has ever heard.

Dr. Stookey would, I think, also want me to tell you that you can’t get to the resurrection without the crucifixion. The cross of Christ is itself a potent means of grace. But our ability to celebrate the empty tomb will always be impoverished if we show up to hear the astounding news of an empty tomb, but have not heard all that happened so that death’s power could be broken from the inside.

No matter what your previous experience of Holy Week has been, there is room to enter more fully into the amazing grace of God. We can continue walking up the staircase, growing in holiness with each step.

By the grace of God, may we each experience a more meaningful Holy Week this week than we ever have.

 

 

This article first appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2015.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Time During the Year

It is a season to weed and to water and to pluck from the vine.

We are in the midst of Ordinary Time on the liturgical calendar – between Pentecost and Advent, “ordinary” sounds mundane. But if it is mundane, it can also be the beautiful kind of mundane, like a long-married couple sharing their morning coffee or a gardener deadheading a plant, again. Tempus per anum is the phrase from which we glean ordinary time, though it simply means “time during the year.” Where ordinary may sound aimless or lacking in comment-worthy value, “time during the year” calls us to peaceful, bustling fruitfulness.

During the summer, you water, you weed, you gather up harvest, you can vegetables or boil fruit into jam to save up for bleak winter days when hard grey and brown define the horizon. Repetition does not have to imply boredom or meaninglessness – though advertisers attempt to convince us otherwise. The rhythm of seasons is a necessary beauty, like the measured count behind your favorite music.

In the modest little volume, A Year in an Irish Garden, writer Ruth Isabel Ross comments on gardening life in August.

Light rain all day, endless gloom, horrible for many disappointed people on holiday especially since the weather forecasts predicted several days of brilliant sunshine. It is difficult for an enthusiastic gardener, though, not to gloat selfishly at the thought of so many roots finding refreshment. Some of our most handsome perennial plants look wilted because we skimped their mulching. Now they’ll revive. As for the vegetables, this incessant rain should save the crops.

knockmore garden
Historic Knockmore Garden, County Wicklow, Ireland.

Ms. Ross’ thoughts from County Wicklow on 22 August again reel us in:

Why is a beautiful morning so much more marvellous than a fine afternoon? Perhaps because of the freshness and because it makes the garden a paradise for suddenly released creatures. There has been gentle rain all night but soon after dawn the sun shines, bringing out happy bees and butterflies.

These meditations from an Irish gardener illumine a couple of practical truths: first, that gardeners and farmers are invested in rather different things than their neighbors. What is a bad day for a tourist is a guiltily triumphant day for someone who has given hours to reclaiming a hundred-year-old garden. And what is ministry but reclaiming lost garden, inch by inch? Until that Day when Heaven and Earth are made new? Our leafy green remnants of our lost paradise assert the beauty with which God created the world. No, we Christians see rhythms and seasons and tides a bit differently than our neighbors, and that’s alright. They don’t have to understand our joy when a fragile perennial survives: but they’ll see our joy, and wonder at it.

Second, there are no small victories. The morning “makes the garden a paradise for suddenly released creatures.” Happy bees and butterflies are free to buzz and flutter. There’s an extraordinary pressure present in the world today: pressure to perform, pressure to always say only just the right thing, pressure to show yourself worthy of being heard, pressure to change people who fall short, pressure to fix all of our global, national, and local woes, pressure to prove our rightness, pressure to practice best practices in every area all the time, pressure to be open and honest about your messiness, pressure to be caught up to date on information that may come up in any conversation, pressure to represent your demographic well, pressure to conform to whatever prevailing values your virtual or physical peer group celebrates.

In the middle of this pressure cooker, where is room to celebrate a paradise for suddenly released creatures? Where is there room to savor one small victory that, in the scheme of things, may be monumental? Gardeners know that faithfulness counts but success is not guaranteed. The ups and downs of gardening illuminate precisely how much is out of our control. Pastors are excellent at attempting to control outcomes. Jesus was wise enough not to. Scatter the seed, Jesus said. Some will get eaten. Some will spring up fast but shallow, withering when the heat is turned up. Some will land on hard rock. And just a little – just a little, will take root, grow, bear fruit. Who are you to discount a small victory? Jesus didn’t. If you’re too good, too successful, too busy to experience gratitude for the freed, released bees and butterflies, why should God put anything bigger in your care?

Consider the lilies – they don’t work, they don’t weave, but they’re more beautiful than all of Solomon’s ancient wealth. How much more will the Savior, who Mary mistook as a gardener, take care of you – and your cares?

We are being tended by the Good Gardener, watered, weeded, pruned. We are subject to the seasons – the time during the year – the ordinary time.  We are ordinary creatures, and that is enough.

Michael Smith ~ All Saints’ and Mentoring: A Personal Reflection

What I Learned from Tim Bock

I was one of those kids who started going to a Christian camp before we were officially allowed to. And as far as I can remember, camp was always a part of my life. This is where I met Tim Bock.

Speaking the Truth

Tim was a guy that at first glance didn’t really want to be your friend. His dry humor and wit often left some feeling awkward around this tall, weird, skinny guy. As a child, I remember that Tim was our babysitter who didn’t want to give my sister ice cream just for the fun of it. He also wasn’t shy about speaking the truth in love to you, and sometimes that can come across very hard. Yet in our family, like in many others, Tim was able to show up at a crucial point where we needed him the most. It was a God-thing.

When I was a junior camper, Tim was my counselor. I remember one night after he finally settled all of the crazy 4th grade boys down, he said, “Guys, I love you.” I still remember the bunk I was in when he said that. I remember the feeling of God’s presence and love come to me through Tim’s simple, yet powerful, words. I was loved and Tim helped me to truly know it.

You may never know the great power that a simple word of love can have on a person, but I encourage you to share love with others. It will never leave my memory. Though a lot of time has passed through the years, the memory of a mentor’s words at a critical time in my life will never fade.

As a young adult, it was Tim who drove me out to work at this same camp for the summer. I had spent several years away from the church and camp, so I was a bit nervous to go back to a familiar (but at the same time new) place. It was in this summer that I met some great friends and connected closer to God than ever before. I would meet a lifelong friend that I would spend time at Asbury College  with. I would meet a future seminary professor that summer, though I didn’t feel called into ministry at that time. That one week of camp meeting alone when Tim was dean was life-altering.

The Most Important Message

Tim was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He fought it hard for as long as he could. I was still in college when I had to give Tim a call. He didn’t sound the same, and we both knew that his time on this earth was running short. He was too weak to speak much, so I chatted a bit about upcoming plans. My old mentor was so affirming and gracious. I knew while we talked that this would be our last conversation.

I didn’t want it to be. I didn’t know what to say. So I said simply what he had taught me when I was a 4th grader.

“Tim, I love you.”

With his struggling voice my mentor told me, “I love you too.”

Many of my friends can tell funny stories of late-night antics at camp and share wonderful memories of Tim’s short life span. My witness to him is very simple: I loved Tim Bock. And I live in the present moment knowing that he made God’s love real to me.

Love changes people. It changed me. When you love, you honor my friend Tim. But more so, you will honor the Savior that Tim loved and served, Jesus Christ. Tim is now part of the “cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us. He encourages us to run the race – and in true Tim Bock fashion – he is probably making fun of me for running it in a weird way. But after we laugh, he tells me I am loved.

This makes me want to keep running.

Who has kept you running?

Kevin Watson ~ A More Meaningful Holy Week

There are several moments from classes when I was in seminary at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C. that have stayed with me in the years since I graduated. I remember the class “Methodist History and Doctrine” when Dr. Doug Strong’s summary of the Wesleyan Way of Salvation brought so many things together for me and made me feel in my bones that I was a Methodist, and was a major catalyst for where I am today. I remember Dr. Amy Oden reminding us in “Church History” every class to ask the “So what?” question when we studied the past. I remember Dr. Sondra Wheeler’s passion for clear thinking and her ability to challenge students to be consistent and carefully consider and probe unexamined ethical assumptions. I remember Dr. Scott Kisker sending us out into the streets of D.C. to ask people about what grace meant to them. And I remember Dr. Kendall Soulen saying that you could put a host of different things as descriptors of Jesus, but at a very basic level the gospel was simply, “Jesus saves.”

I learned a lot in seminary and had some amazing teachers. Perhaps the image that has stayed with me more than any other came from Dr. Laurence Hull Stookey’s “Corporate Worship” course. Dr. Stookey was discussing the Christian calendar, and he was trying to help us see that the purpose of the Christian calendar was more than a circle where you do the same things over and over again. He described the Christian calendar as being like a spiral staircase: you come to the same point in the circle each year, but you have ascended higher up the stairs each year than you were the year before, or at least that is the purpose of the Christian calendar.

Dr. Stookey’s image of the Christian year being like a spiral staircase has helped me understand why Christian time is itself a means of grace. Every year we go through seasons of repentance, self-denial, and fasting. Each year we also go through seasons of celebration, rejoicing, and exultation. And every year we go through seasons of ordinary time, when we are in a season of “regular” living.

I have come to appreciate many things about the Christian calendar. I appreciate the way the Christian calendar helps you practice what real life is like. As I have ascended the spiral staircase, I have become better at rejoicing – really celebrating –what God has done for the world – and for me. I have also learned how to grieve, to lament, to say no to myself and others, and to notice the heartbreaking extent to which things in the world are not ok. Perhaps what has surprised me the most about the major rhythms of the Christian calendar is that I have come to appreciate ordinary time, the gift of unextraordinary days, even seasons when you experience normal rhythms and routines.

This week, Holy Week, is the highlight of the Christian calendar. To speak in a way that I suspect Dr. Stookey might not approve, Holy Week is like the Super Bowl of the Christian calendar. It is packed with meaning and is like the entire Christian year packed into one week.

Observing Holy Week has had a significant impact on my life. There are many different ways I could mark my growth as a follower of Jesus Christ, but a major part of my growth as a Christian came when I started to attend Holy Week services. Attending worship on Thursday and Friday of Holy Week is a highlight of my year as a follower of Jesus. Attending these services has prepared me to celebrate – really celebrate – the news that Jesus Christ is risen.

As I have, by the grace of God, ascended the spiral staircase of the Christian calendar, I have discovered that Christians (myself absolutely included) have a lot of room to grow in discipline and self-denial. I have been surprised to find that Christians are often actually worse at celebration than they are at self-denial. Easter is not one Sunday, it is eight weeks. But I have yet to attend a church that has had the celebratory stamina to throw an eight-week party. I have been to some amazing Easter Sunday services, but I don’t remember a single worship service from the sixth Sunday of Easter.

It is here that Dr. Stookey would want to remind us all that every Sunday is a little Easter. Christians celebrate (but do we really celebrate?) the resurrection every single Sunday.

I urge you to do whatever you have to do to attend Holy Week services this week. We need to prepare to celebrate this Sunday. And God, in God’s graciousness, has given us an entire week to prepare to celebrate the best news the world has ever heard.

Dr. Stookey would, I think, also want me to tell you that you can’t get to the resurrection without the crucifixion. The cross of Christ is itself a potent means of grace. But our ability to celebrate the empty tomb will always be impoverished if we show up to hear the astounding news of an empty tomb, but have not heard all that happened so that death’s power could be broken from the inside.

No matter what your previous experience of Holy Week has been, there is room to enter more fully into the amazing grace of God. We can continue walking up the staircase, growing in holiness with each step.

By the grace of God, may we each experience a more meaningful Holy Week this week than we ever have. Amen.

Scott Pattison ~ The Gift of Time

I find myself very thankful for many gifts and experiences this year. The one I find most intriguing, as I reflect, is the gift of time. It is something we all have. It is something we all can give. It is something that is wonderful to receive, as well as give. Yet it is something that can easily be taken from us, or that we can hoard. It is something we can squander, or something we can strategically invest.

As I age, I find myself wishing I had better invested my time in some areas, and so glad I invested in other areas. There is a part of me that would love to go back to the “younger me” and instruct myself as to how better invest the daily allotment of each 24 hours over this past half-century of life. Regardless of how I have spent, squandered, or invested my time, I still have the wonderful gift of this set of 24 hours. Regardless of how I spent “yesterday,” I still have today. I can waste today by regretting yesterday or yearning for tomorrow. I can spend the day selfishly on myself or investing in others. Even when people, like employers, regulate a section of our time, we still choose how we will use it. As a Christian, our relationship with God has placed a call on how we will use our time. Will we use it for ourselves, or for Kingdom purposes?

While we look to buy or make gifts to be wrapped and given this season, don’t forget that each day is a Christmas present. God created, Christ died and arose for our redemption, and the Holy Spirit sustains and empowers our lives, so that we may fully be who God created and redeemed us to be. Each day is given for us to unwrap. Some days will be wonderful gifts, others may seem like garbage wrapped in tinsel – but each day is our day to unwrap, invest, and grow in. I have found that when I talk with people who have been given a limited amount of time to live on planet earth, these moments become amazingly more precious than before the diagnosis. Nothing changed, but the filter “your time is limited” has now been added. I find that in those circumstances I adjust to embrace my time more carefully – until things (even good things) start stealing my time again.

As we come to the close of one year, and the start of another, I invite you to reflect on how you spend your gift of the 24 hours given afresh each morning. Some days will crawl with mind-numbing slowness, and others will zip with the speed of light (literally). Some days we will want to speed by, while others we wish we could slow, so that we could savor them a bit more. Yet, each day comes, and each second, minute, and hour pass at the same pace as yesterday. So how will you invest it? Who are you investing it with? To what end? Gayle Sayers (one of the best running backs in history) wrote a book entitled, “I Am Third.” That was his filter in investing his time as a Christian. Sayers’s credo is, “the Lord is first, my friends are second, and I am third.”

How will you unwrap your gift of time? Invest wisely, forgive yourself frequently, and enjoy the moments regularly!

Tammie Grimm ~ Advent Adjustments

Advent. For some, it’s a countdown to Christmas. For others, it marks the beginning of the Christian calendar year. For most Christians, it is a season of preparation: not just to celebrate the birth of Jesus but to renew our hearts that we might see Christ in the here and now as well as in hope and expectation of his second coming.

When we are children or new to Christian faith, Advent mostly seems to be about counting down to Christmas. Advent calendars, either the candle wreathes lit in weekly worship (or even in the home) or the calendars with perforated windows (bonus for the ones with chocolate morsel surprises!), are used to help teach the importance of waiting; patiently, but expectantly. Regardless of age, we are reminded each week that the light breaks into the world and with each new glowing candle, the symbolic darkness of the world’s troubles recedes as the hope, peace, joy and love of Christ take center stage, culminating in a flood of light on Christmas Eve.

However, if we always let Advent be a countdown to Christmas, we more likely become consumed with the crazed frenzy of the holiday season, stressing out as we sit in gridlocked traffic instead of getting items crossed off our to-do lists. You see, Advent has so much more to offer! In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the season, Advent bids us to a posture of getting ready for Christ. We prepare our homes and our hearts not only for the celebration of the nativity inaugurating the twelve days of Christmas, but also for the constant way Christ breaks into our lives each and every day, and for the eventual, expected and awaited second coming of Christ in history. Congregations that allow for Advent (thereby waiting on Christmas) sing brooding hymns that voice our hope and longing for God to finally break into this world. The focus of Advent is on God’s coming, God’s arrival, God’s entrance into the world. We sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” or “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” requesting Christ’s full presence among us. In “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” we are reminded that “he comes to break oppression, to set the captives free, to take away transgression, and rule in equity.”

Advent also begins the year for Christians. Just as Jewish friends celebrate their new year at Rosh Hannah and the Chinese inaugurate the year with the Lunar New Year, the Christian church marks the start of the new liturgical year with Advent. As I’ve experienced Advent in its various manifestations over the years – as a countdown to Christmas, or a time of preparation and expectation to receive and see Jesus – it is this aspect of Advent that beckons me this year. I don’t just mean opening the lectionary to Year B, either. If Advent is the Christian New Year, what things am I called to do, or do I need to do differently, starting now, for Christ and for the world, that should not wait for a New Year resolution on January 1?

I have a deep appreciation for the liturgical tradition that marks time differently than our culture does. In the past, I have been an Advent Nazi, holding off on Christmas carols and songs till at least mid-December. I also have strong opinions regarding purple (not blue) as the proper color of waiting and expectation. And as firmly as I’d like to hold onto those aspects of Advent, I am reminded that my staunch mindset can hinder me from seeing how Christ is breaking into the world while I remain firmly entrenched in tradition for tradition’s sake. As the culture continues to co-opt Christmas into a commercial holiday that begins increasingly earlier and earlier, I’m ready, this year, to begin my contemplations for making New Year resolutions now, in Advent.

And the wonderful part is that I dare to believe John Wesley invites us to do just that! Many contemporary Wesleyans are familiar with Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Service, a service instituted among the people called Methodists. Wesley’s Covenant Prayer is often used today, as it was in Wesley’s day, in January, at the start of the new calendar year. Since Wesley lived in 18th century England, a time in which Christendom was unquestioned, when persons in the early Methodist movement were expected to be members of the Anglican Church, the whole calendar, ecclesial and cultural, moved with intentional ritual, filled with reflection and meaning. Today’s postmodern, post-Christian society lacks the rhythmic cadence, the purposeful quietness that allows us to be introspective, to take pause and take stock of our selves and get our bearings. So, what’s to prevent the contemporary Christian, specifically the modern day Methodist, from using Advent (the Christian New Year) as the time to contemplate how to prepare our hearts for the continual and eventual return of Christ by using Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Service?

In Wesley’s service, participants are asked to consider five aspects of their discipleship: their everyday Christian life lived before God and the world. A modern paraphrase by George Lyons reads as follows:

– First, consider what your sins are and examine whether you can resolve to forego them all. Consider what His laws are — how holy, strict, and spiritual, and whether you can, upon deliberation, choose them all as the rule of your whole life.
– Second, compose your spirits into the most serious frame possible, suitable to a transaction of so high importance.
– Third, lay hold on the covenant of God and rely upon His promise of giving grace and strength, for only through these will you be enabled to perform your promise. Do not trust your own strength, but take hold on His strength.
– Fourth, resolve to be faithful. Having engaged your hearts, opened your mouths, and subscribed with your hands to the Lord, resolve in His strength never to go back.
– Fifth and last, being thus prepared, in the most solemn manner possible, as if the Lord were visibly present before your eyes, bow and open your hearts to the Lord.

Each prompt is not only consistent with a life of intentional Wesleyan discipleship, which is lived day in and day out throughout the year, but also imbued with themes of Advent. Waiting in expectant hope. Joyfully preparing for the coming peace. Asking God’s grace to break in and envelop the world in a conspiracy of love. How meaningful might our Christmas celebrations and the New Year resolutions we take on might be, if we take full advantage of Advent and live into each of its various aspects in this Christian New Year? May this Advent season be especially blessed as you celebrate it in all aspects as God leads and guides you.

 

http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/user_upload/Wesley_Covenant-George_Lyons.htm

Cole Bodkin ~ Advent: Thy Kingdom Come

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

“A little premature, man…”

When the holiday season rolls around, emphasis is placed on the Big Three: Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. What would happen if we started celebrating the Big Two—Advent and Christmas—instead of the Big Three?

Christians may forget that Advent marks the beginning of the Christian calender year. It entails celebrating two events simultaneously: Jesus’ first coming and his second coming. The lectionary texts during Advent orient themselves more towards the latter, and it might be worthwhile to suggest that we do likewise. It’s high time that we get back to celebrating the Christian New Year with as much anticipation as watching the ball drop at Times Square. Maybe we should realign ourselves with the liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and the season after Pentecost. In doing so we may find ourselves getting caught up in the story of Jesus and his people.

Most of us have tried New Year’s resolutions but have come away unsuccessfully. What if our resolutions this year were eschatologically focused instead of self-focused? How can we reorient ourselves towards the hope that Christ will come again? Here are a few suggestions inspired by John Wesley’s sermon “The Means of Grace”:

1) Prayer

Isn’t it interesting that Wesley started with prayer? Many Wesleyan Christians have been exposed to and taught to pray the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday. The early church, and those who prayed the daily hours, prayed the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. The petition “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” teaches us to look forward to when God’s kingdom will be fully consummated on earth as in heaven. This is thoroughly soaked in future hope, which, as Paul points out, is inextricably connected to Jesus’ second coming (see 1 Thessalonians 4).

This is anticipatory, too. A helpful modification to praying the Lord’s Prayer in this new year could involve substituting “earth” with whatever location or sphere of influence you are in (like city, town, church, home). Then ask yourself, “what would it look like if God were in control here?” Pray together with brothers and sisters in Christ and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit on how you can live in the present in anticipation of God’s kingdom coming on earth as in heaven.

2) Scripture

In his sermon “The Means of Grace,” John Wesley focuses on searching the Scriptures, which includes reading, hearing, and meditation. It seems that over the past several years, there has been an increased interest in how we read the Bible. The importance of how we read cannot be overstated; however, maybe of more importance is that we are  reading the Bible. Following a reading plan can be helpful. Reading three or four chapters a day isn’t hard. This New Year could be spent on reading the Bible from the front cover to the back; next year, read from the back cover to front. Soak yourself in the story of God and his people. Meditate on it, and follow how the narrative finds its culmination in Jesus of Nazareth, whose return we anticipate throughout the Advent season.

If your Church follows the lectionary, take advantage of it! If a faithful, healthy member is around for three  years, then they should hear the vast majority of Scripture, being exposed to the narrative, motifs, and themes.

3) The Lord’s Supper

Wesley urged the early Methodists to partake of the Lord’s Supper as often as possible, even going so far as encouraging constant communion. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim his death until he comes again. We look forward to when we shall gather around the table for the Messianic feast.

Each of these “means of grace” helps to place us in avenues whereby we might receive God’s grace in the present in preparation for the life that awaits us in the (re)new(ed) world. These practices anticipate when the Lord shall come again and put the world to rights.

Ellsworth Kalas ~ Easter’s Exclamation Point

I’m at the point in my life when I ask myself what I would change if I could relive my years of pastoral ministry. Mind you, they were 38 wonderful years, and I cherish the memory of the four appointments in which I served. And I’m smart enough to know that hind sight is not really twenty-twenty, because hind sight is never accurate in recalling the circumstances in which the decisions of past days were made.

Nevertheless, there are so many areas where I could have done better; things that had nothing to do with character, ability, or the nature of the church. That is, things that were really pretty much in my control, and not lost in generalities such as wishing I had made better use of my time (which is a generality made up of specifics).

This is a specific one, and nothing kept me from it except perhaps my ignorance. I wish I had celebrated Ascension Sunday more often, both in my preaching and in the order of worship.

I know why I was slow to learn. I grew up in a long-ago world of Midwestern Methodism when the church calendar had three days, Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day. And sometimes Good Friday We learned much later about Advent, Lent, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and All Saints Day (rather than Memorial Day).

Ascension Day is actually a Thursday, of course, and the more liturgical bodies celebrate it then. But I would celebrate it on the assigned Sunday, knowing that I would reach far more people than on a Thursday.

And of course I would have a hymn from Charles Wesley: “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise.” Wesley wrote it in 1739, when Methodism was still in its first bloom. Its Anglican roots were evident in its sense of tradition, including the church calendar, but the tradition was now aflame with the warmed heart.

The opening line of “Hail the Day” sounds as if it were another Easter hymn — “Hail the day that sees him rise” — but the next line tells us that we have passed beyond Easter; to what does Christ rise? For a few days or years on earth, then to die like Jairus’s daughter or the widow of Nain’s son? If so there is no compelling reason to celebrate Easter. Easter, with such a conclusion, would be the memory of a miracle but not the end to the power of death. Christ has risen so that he may go “to his throne above the skies.”

Our Lord’s ascension is, as I like to phrase it, “Easter’s exclamation point.” It tells us that the resurrection of our Lord is not simply a miracle, something to astonish us as with thousands of other miracles; it is a re-shaping of the order of the universe; it is the death of death. It is not simply a lengthening of life; it is a re-definition of life.

And see what our Lord’s ascension means to us, the church today:

See! The heaven its Lord receives,

Yet he loves the earth he leaves,

Though returning to his throne,

Still he calls the world his own.

I wish I had preached this more often! I wish I had reminded my people that our Lord is still active on our world’s behalf, as our Intercessor. I wish I had told them often enough that both they and I would have got the reality of it.

Matt Sigler ~ Our Hearts Burning Within Us: Eastertide

With the lyrics of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” still ringing in our ears we enter into the season of Eastertide. The joyous proclamation of the hymn is not “Christ the Lord was risen two-thousand years ago;” we sing in the present tense, “Christ is risen today!” Charles Wesley captures in his lyrics the mystery that we often gloss over when we participate in worship: time is a blurry thing in Christian worship. While the past events of scripture are not repeated literally; by the Spirit, time collapses as we engage the Story of God—hence, the lyrics “Christ is risen today.”

The trans-temporality of Christian worship is important to embrace as we enter into these fifty days of Eastertide. Often the weeks after Easter can seem like a letdown. With our energies expended on Easter sunrise services and the other events of the day, we trudge into the following Sundays frequently missing the richness of the post-Easter Day season. The Story does not end with Easter morning and the empty tomb. We have broiled fish to eat and sheep to feed. We need to hear Christ’s voice say “peace be with you” as we’re caught off-guard when he unexpectedly shows up in our midst. Like the disciples, we need to encounter the risen Christ as we continue on the journey. Here are a few reasons why the season of Eastertide is so important.

Verifying the Resurrection

Confusion leads to disbelief, doubt is shattered by encounter, and in the presence of the risen Lord, fear dissolves into unbounded joy. We struggle with many of the same concerns that the disciples struggled with in the weeks following Easter. Inevitably, CNN or the History Channel will run their one hour documentaries giving alternative possibilities to bodily resurrection. If Eastertide does anything, it forces us into the narrative where we encounter a very physically risen Lord—one who eats with us and invites us to touch his wounds. In worship we also are given the opportunity to encounter the same risen Lord in our midst.

Manifesting the Already-But-Not-Yetness of the Kingdom

For forty days the disciples lived in swirling awe of the risen Christ. One can’t blame them for taking some time before finally asking in Acts 1, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus’ answer takes them by surprise and it does us too: it’s not for us to know the times set by the Father. What the season of Eastertide does allow us to know for certain is that our current age is temporary. The resurrection validates all that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God: a kingdom that has already been established, but has not yet fully come. It also shows us our destiny in Christ, the first fruits of this new creation.

Pointing Us to the End of the Story

At the end of the forty days following the resurrection the disciples stand gazing up into heaven and are immediately given the promise that the ascended Christ will return one day. Ten days later they receive a down payment on that promise at Pentecost. During Eastertide we also are (re)oriented to the end of God’s story of salvation. We renew our hope in the sure and certain return of a King who is making all things new.

Sending Us on Mission

Similarly, Eastertide is also a season where we are called to mission. “Feed my sheep,” “Go and make disciples of all nations,” are words of commission for the followers of the risen Lord. We cannot stand around gazing at the heavens because we have encountered the risen One and know how the Story ends. These fifty days simultaneously remind us of the good news we proclaim as well as our deep need to be infused with the Spirit’s power for this mission.

Our Hearts Burning Within Us

As someone who plans and leads worship, I find my biblical imagination is captivated during this season of Eastertide for all the reasons noted above. And then there’s Emmaus. It’s no wonder why so many have read this text as model for worship—Jesus opens up the scriptures and manifests himself in the breaking of the bread. Regardless of your exegesis on this passage, the text stirs a desire to feel our own hearts burning within us as we encounter the Lord in the Story. The same Lord who met the disciples on the road to Emmaus longs to meet us during this season of Eastertide. As we seek him, he opens his Word to us, meets us in the breaking of the Bread, and stirs our hearts with his holy love in a way that makes it impossible to contain the news of his resurrection.