An article about bringing a Christian voice to festivals and celebrations outside our churches
(This article was first published in Issue 81 January/February 2016.)
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On a recent visit to the Holy Land I discovered Gospel stories, not just written on pages in ink, but embedded into the landscape and architecture. The churches and sacred sites of Jerusalem and Galilee, in particular, each tell the visitor something about Jesus’ life and teaching. This contested and troubled place is a geographical Bible.
Of course, Christian discipleship is not something that belongs in archaeology or bibliography. It is to be carried in our hearts and made visible in our lives. The tradition of using a calendar to mark out our time is a way of doing this. In marking out time, the Christian Church has helped its children to shape their lives by the Gospel, and the unfolding truth of salvation found in Scripture. So, by celebrating Christmas we identify ourselves with Jesus as God made flesh; in Lent we identify ourselves with Jesus’ struggle; in Holy Week we do so in Jesus’ suffering; and at Easter we see ourselves afresh as a resurrection community. And we can think about Ascensiontide, and Pentecost, and Trinity, and All Saints, and many other commemoration days in this light too. Somehow, in rich celebration of these seasons, we can place ourselves much more vividly into the story, and see ourselves alongside Mary and Joseph and Peter and others. Worship on a Sunday also is a way Christians identify themselves with the resurrection every week. Sunday is the day of resurrection – the old ‘Sabbath’ was Saturday.
But for many in our society the moorings between the Gospel and the festivals have been lost, even when the festival is still remembered. Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny make more powerful connections than the Son of God. Still, secularity does not drown out the desire of people to mark out time, and in it to find meaning. These times remain vital ways for people of faith to cement their walk with Jesus, much like regular prayer or weekly communion identifies us with his way.
Of course, marking out time is not limited to holy days. What about New Year, Valentine’s Day, Mothering Sunday and Father’s Day? Or those days that may have an ecclesiastical root but are laced with the heavyweight national meanings: patron saints’ days (celebrated often for more patriotic than religious reasons), VE and VJ Day, Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday? The deep meanings associated with these days are often just as confused, for many people, as they are with Christian festivals such as Christmas and Easter.
Christian teachers open the eyes of faith in people by making sense of the religious calendar. They can also do so by making sense of what here we may call the secular calendar. We are well used to doing the former, and perhaps also with the days of the secular calendar whose roots are ecclesiastical; but what about the others? For human beings, created in the image of God, it would be surprising if there were not some correspondence between the themes that belong to the secular realm and those that belong to the sacred.
Two such days fall during January and February: New Year and Valentine’s Day. These are not immediately and completely children’s themes, but here there is a real resonance with the experience of life that all households will share something of. And the light of faith offers hope to what otherwise might seem unreachable or unreal. The principle is one of stepping away from a religious comfort zone, bringing a Christian voice to the festivals, celebrations and commemorations that take place outside of our churches, and helping to make sense of our human condition, our joys and fears, by the connectedness of heaven and earth.
The Ven. Dr Tim Stratford is Archdeacon of Leicester, and a member of the Church of England Liturgical Commission.