Singing the Seasons

 

Within the church, there is a Church Liturgical Year.  There are seasons that are repeated and rehearsed year after year.  The church year begins with Advent (four weeks before Christmas), Christmas follows (which has twelve days – now you are going to be singing that song all day) which leads to Epiphany (the arrival of the Wise Ones).  The season of Epiphany is one that is elastic and can expand over different numbers of weeks each year depending on when Easter is.  The day of Easter moves around a bit because it is an astronomical calculation that is based on the first full moon on or after the spring equinox.  Once you know when Easter is, you back up forty days excluding Sundays (which is the season of Lent) to find Ash Wednesday.  Any time between January 6 and Ash Wednesday is the season of Epiphany.  There are fifty days of Easter – this long season teaches and tells us that living in the mystery of resurrection is an invitation even greater/longer than Lent.  Fifty days after Easter is Pentecost.  After Pentecost, we enter ordinary time which is almost half a year ~ telling us that most of our life is lived in this season of holy ordinariness.  Ordinary time eventually rounds the corner to Christ the King Sunday celebrated in November right before the beginning of another Advent.  And the church-cycle repeats and replays again/afresh/anew.   There are hymns associated and connected to each season.  Christmas Carols to Lenten melodies often in a minor key to the bright brass accompanying us in belting out, “Christ the Lord is Risen today…alleluia!!” 

 

Just as there are four seasons in nature, these seasons of the church year invite us into a rhythm and refrain that can open us to God in our life.  Advent is characterized as waiting.  Christmas celebrates new life found in strange spaces (a barn!).  Epiphany is about awakening and awareness.  Lent reminds us of the less-than-perfectness of life.  Easter honors how God holds all that is human continually calling forth renewal.  Pentecost, as we heard on Sunday, celebrates the Spirit that enlivens and empowers.  A hymn that hymns in my heart today is, In the Bulb, please pray these words with me.

 

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;

in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!

In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

 

There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;

there's a dawn in every darkness bringing hope to you and me.

From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

 

In our end is our beginning ;in our time, infinity;

in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.

In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

 

May the words above sing to the season or seasons (because sometimes we are in Advent waiting in one part of our life and Easter celebration in another part of life and holy ordinariness in still another place) of your life.  I pray God helps you listen to the humming a holy tune this day.  Amen.