Sacred Time in a Secular Age

Christians have always been a people “untimely born,” as Paul says of himself (I Cor 15:8).  This is especially true in our day, when what we might call “the CNN-ization of time” can send us into “a frenetic pursuit of ‘breaking news,'” in which we rarely see the big picture but always hunger for the next thing (James K.A. Smith, Desiring the kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation).  Our holiday seasons are much the same.  Take, for example, the American holiday trifecta of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  When exactly does this season begin?  When does it end?  No one really knows.  But we sure are exhausted by the end of it.

This is where the Christian Year can be a glass of cool water… For centuries, God has been inviting his people to “live inside a big story, one that started long before our birth and that will go on long after our death, one that’s as wide as the universe and old as eternity:  the Story of God as centered in Jesus the Christ” (Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year:  Time to Inhabit the Story of God).  Unlike our secular calendars, which seem to take us only from one party to the next, the Christian calendar leads us closer and closer to new creation.  It follows the life of Jesus.  And so can we–by reliving the moments of our Lord’s birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and certain return.