How to Tell Time
Worship, Embodiment, and the Church Year
Since the very beginning of Israel’s tabernacle rituals, worship was understood as a profoundly embodied affair. Each piece of furniture, from altars and lavers of brass to tables of bread and incense, required certain enacted movements that were not merely symbolizing something spiritual or worshipful, they were, in fact, worship itself. The same goes for the priestly garments, Passover meals, rotating psalm and Torah readings, and a host of other earthy and tactile engagements with holy things, all of which comprised the tangible, enfleshed worship of the people of God.
Of course, given the fact the earliest Christians were Jews steeped in this sort of liturgical performance yet believing Israel’s Messiah had finally come, it’s not hard to see just how these practices were resourced and shaped around the proclamation of Jesus Christ. Since the Church’s infancy, liturgical traditions have embodied these acts in new, Christianly ways. For example, we have our tables of incense, our priests with vestments, and our altars of sacrifice where the eternal offering, not of bulls or goats, but the broken body and blood of Christ is “re-presented” each week in Holy Eucharist. We have our readings from the Lectionary and our fixed times of prayer. Early Christian worship was deeply Judaized; it was an enfleshed practice, a holy reality entered into not just by heartfelt singing or hand-lifting, but bodily interaction.
As Christmas approaches, it reminds us of another enduring act of worship that is often overlooked: calendars.
From the first Passover, Jewish tradition developed ways of telling time that centered on God’s raising Israel out of Egypt. The Church continued this practice with a calendar centered around the altered circumstance of Jesus as Messiah. For Christians who observe the Church’s holy days, our entire year – our very sense of time-telling – is rooted in and revolves around the story that the God who raised Israel from Egypt has now raised Christ from the dead. From Purim and Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Church renewed these ways of marking dates and times with feasts like Advent and Christmas, Epiphany and Easter. Worship is happening as the days tick off our calendars.
Not only does our yearly cycle bear witness to the work of God in Christ, but each week is designed to retell the story as well. The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) includes Collects during the weekly prayer times of the Morning and Evening Offices. For example –
On Friday mornings we pray:
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Friday evenings:
Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen.
Sunday mornings:
O God, you make us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of your Son our Lord: Give us this day such blessing through our worship of you, that the week to come may be spent in your favor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
And finally, Sunday evenings:
Lord God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ triumphed over the powers of death and prepared for us our place in the new Jerusalem: Grant that we, who have this day given thanks for his resurrection, may praise you in that City of which he is the light, and where he lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
Did you spot the beautiful logic here? Each Friday at both morning and evening is treated as a mini-Good Friday, and each Sunday a mini-Easter. Our year tells the story, our weeks tell the story, and each day tells the story too.
The Noonday Office in the Prayer Book includes this Collect, prayed every day:
Blessed Savior, at this hour you hung upon the cross, stretching out your loving arms: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen.
Jesus’ story is remembered every year in the calendar, every week in the Collects, and indeed every day in the Noonday Office. For Christians, this is how we understand and tell time. Worship is not simply the singing portion of our weekend church gatherings; worship is embodied in our days and weeks, months and years. For the Church, our very calendar is a sacrifice of praise.
I mention this because if you are unfamiliar with the Church Year, now is a wonderful time to get acquainted. The beginning of the Christian new year – Advent – is fast approaching. It is that lovely season where we wait with breathless anticipation, just as the people of God awaited in the first century, for God to act in his Son. All sorts of custom and tradition surround this season, all intended to help us lean in and advent well. More on this to come later, but for now rest in this – our God will come and save us.