At New Year's, a reflection on the church year

By Bishop Robert D. Hofstad
Southwestern Washington Synod

The Church Year. Every Christian knows it. Even if he or she thinks they don’t … they know it! Why? Because our culture knows it. Christmas is December 25th! Easter…that’s in March or April, isn’t it? ... something about Jesus! Even Halloween has something to do with the church, doesn’t it? All of us know there is an annual cycle of the church year … even if we think we don’t know.
The Church Year — Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost — serves to take us back to the events of Jesus’ life so we 
will not forget them. This is reason enough to celebrate. But there is 
more ... much more! If looking back is the only function of the Church
Year, we have lost, perhaps, the most important gift.
The Church Year mirrors the cycle of life. Not simply life in general, but specifically our life in Jesus Christ. The Church Year does
take us back to events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, but more importantly the Church Year points to Jesus living forward into the 
present and the future. When we celebrate Christmas, the gift of God’s Incarnation in Jesus Christ — God active in the “stuff” of life — God becomes a reality in our life. As we celebrate Easter, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes our own death and resurrection. 
We celebrate our baptism into Christ and our resurrection by the forgiveness of sins. Over and over again as we travel through the
Church Year we experience a death and resurrection in our own life.
How does the Church Year evoke death and resurrection at other 
times? In Advent the waiting and anticipation of the season become reflections of our own life as we await release from the worries and 
burdens that hold us fast. In the darkness of Epiphany we come to understand the darkness in which we live — both as individuals and in our world — and we come to see the light of Christ breaking 
through that darkness. In Lent we come to know the “miniature” deaths we experience each and every day and our being “called forth”to new life from the waters of Holy Baptism. And in the Pentecost season, the Holy Spirit comes to us — just as to the disciples on 
Pentecost Day — bestowing the “fire” of faith and the “breath” of new hope in Jesus Christ.
Our journey through the Church Year is, in fact, a recurring experience of “pascha” — passing over from life to death, and from death to new life again. Each and every season and festival of the Church Year has its own coloring and shading, yet the Gospel proclamation remains firmly in place: Jesus Christ — by his own death and resurrection, by repentance and the forgiveness of our sins, and through the proclamation of the Word and celebration of the Sacraments — brings us to new life from out of the clutches of death.
The Church Year enfolds us into the cycle of life: Life — Death — Resurrection. Not by itself, of course. There is also the daily reading of scripture, regular worship and prayers, and even the exercise of our own ministry — our baptismal calling to love God and serve our neighbor. These also bring both death and resurrection to life. And the Church year does the same. It is a precious gift! A gift from God in Christ through the Holy Spirit throughout each and every day of life.
Thanks be to God!