Marking Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year

Ses s i on 4: God’ s T imep i ece and God’ s Te l os 95

1. The elaborate Jewish sacred calendar, with its fasts, feasts, and festivals, was anchored in the saving works of God in history.

2. Linking spirituality to salvation history , meant that the story of what God spoke, did, undertook, and accomplished was the focal point of worship in the community of God. God’s actions in history must necessarily be told, remem bered, celebrated, and reflected upon, not simply the whims and desires of the people.

a. Exod. 20.1-3 (ESV) – And God spoke all these words, saying, [2] “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. [3] You shall have no other gods before me.”

b. Deut. 4.33 (ESV) – Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?

c. Deut. 4.36 (ESV) – Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.

d. Deut. 5.4 (ESV) – The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire.

e. Deut. 5.22 (ESV) – These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.