Marking Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year

Ses s i on 3: Keep i ng the Rhy thm of the Sp i r i t 69

4. Contemporary practices of Lent find their roots in this period of final weeks of preparation for baptism.

E. The Cycle of Light in the early Church: Advent , Christmas , and Epiphany

1. Although Advent developed later, it soon became, next to Easter, the most important cycle of Christian time.

a. Encouraged Christians to relive the Old Testament expectations that they believe were fulfilled at Bethlehem, and, simultaneously . . .

b. . . . prepare for the Lord’s return at the consummation.

2. 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).

3. The early Church, in opposition to the Roman worship of the sun, envisioned Christ’s entrance into the world as the early dawn of a new day, the drawing near of ‘the Sun of righteousness’ (Mal. 4.2).

4. The Bible does not set Christ’s birth as December 25 (Rome) or January 6 (Egypt).

1 The Eastern Orthodox observe Christmas 13 days later than December 25 because of its historical refusal to ignore the Gregorian calendar over what they consider the “secular” Julian calendar.

5. Influence of observing the winter solstice as the point at which “the sun begins again to grow” (i.e., over time, the Roman date won out) 1