Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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A Theology of the Christian Year, continued

Grant us grace to see thee, Lord, Mirrored in thy holy word; May we imitate thee now, And be pure, as pure art thou; That we like to thee may be At thy great Epiphany; And may praise thee, ever blest, God in Man made manifest.

The preacher’s task is to allow the glory of God to be seen in the face of Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 4:6), so that, being by that beholding changed from glory into glory (3:18), the righteous by faith may at the last shine like the sun (Matt. 13:43). Advent Epiphany became, after Easter and Pentecost, the next most favored moment for Christian baptism; and the preceding season of Advent, which is confined to Western Christianity, may in that respect have had origins similar to Lent. The liturgical themes of Advent, how ever, offer only a few hints of preparation for individual baptism and seem rather to envisage more directly the first and final comings of Christ. They encourage Christians to relive the Old Testament expectations that they believe were fulfilled at Bethlehem and, simultaneously, to prepare themselves for the Lord’s return at the consummation. Isaiah is a favored source of Scripture lessons, since the book lends itself to a “stereoscopic” reading that sees the prophecies as both realized in Christ and yet still outstanding until the End. The preacher will use the season of Advent not only to build up to the celebration of Christmas but also, following medieval practice, to confront the “four last things” of death and judgment, heaven and hell. This is the existential application to each individual of Christ’s awaited coming again in glory to judge the quick and the dead (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10). Two traditional feasts related to the date of Christmas are the Annunciation (March 25, nine months before December 25; cf. Luke 1:26-38) and the Presentation of Christ in the temple (February 2, forty days after Christmas; cf. Luke 2:22-40).