The Liturgical Year: Shared Family History
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood
The stories we hear shape us. They influence the stories we tell ourselves. Stories, especially family stories, provide a lens through which to view our internal and external worlds. They form our identity. As for family stories, we did not write these and most occurred before we took our first breath. Family stories have the ability to cultivate pride and loyalty, binding people together in love. For example, we receive names from our parents that honor the memory of an esteemed distant ancestor. A family carries the name of someone into the third, fourth, or even fifth generation. Sometimes families champion a profession down generational lines, like a family of doctors or craftsmen. They might build a reputation in a community through a beloved family business. Families observe long-held holiday traditions involving gifts, games, and cherished recipes. Stories emerge out of shared histories and family cultures. They tell us who we are.
Unfortunately, in many cases, these family stories do not foster positive identity. The ubiquitous nature of sin spreads like a virus down bloodlines and results in the devious character of some family stories. Plainly stated, they are not all good. For example, Great-Uncle Fred may have presented as a comical family man, but everyone knew of his secret gambling problem that drove his family to a life of bankruptcy and debt. Great-Great-Grandma Jeanie was a hospitable woman, but she frequently turned to the bottle and manifested her issues by lashing out in rage. Consequently, her children struggle with similar issues. The (fill in the blank) family down the road carries a reputation throughout the community for their addictions. Generational strongholds of emotional, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse firmly grasp families. Absent and addicted family members operate out of unhealthy systems that perpetuate hidden sin. We inherit these stories and often scramble to make sense of tragedy and abuse on our own. These stories do untold damage and potentially cause us to imitate and identify with someone else's sin.
Stories shape and mis-shape our identity.
The good news is that in Christ we join a new family with a story of redemption. When we die and rise with Christ in the waters of baptism we unite with a new body. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” Just as the Father spoke over Christ as he emerged from the Jordan River, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17), we too, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are marked by familial grace as children of God in our baptism. The Spirit clothes us with Christ, brings us into his household, and gives us a new kingdom story with which to make sense of our individual stories (Gal. 3:27; Eph. 2:19-22).
In response to this, each Sunday, the family meets together around the communion table to break bread and retell the kingdom story in worship through the liturgical calendar. The liturgical calendar helps the Church orient her time and attention around Jesus. It is inherently Christocentric as it proclaims the entirety of the story of salvation from beginning to end over and over. It is a means of grace. As we follow Christ through his birth, life, death, resurrection, and anticipate his second coming, we begin to imitate and identify with Christ.
The Christian narrative is not simply a story or quaint, lukewarm retelling of a mythological past bearing no weight in today’s world. It is a living story imbued with the power of grace. The liturgical calendar allows the Church, the body of Christ, to represent and rehearse the divine mysteries of God, gaze into the life of God in holy awe, and encounter the radical, transformative presence of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
For example, during the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) we marvel at the miracle of the incarnation. We recount the truth that Christ emptied himself, became flesh, and lived among us (Phil 2:7; John 1:14). We bow down and worship God for the beauty of the incarnation.
The Nicene Creed teaches:
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
The story of the incarnation unveils an ineffable mystery of God. Christ is the incarnate God, fully human and fully divine. The story transcends the frailty of human reason and draws our hearts to revel in God’s creating power and self-giving goodness. While some churches give in to the temptation to move away from the theological emphases of Christmas for something overly sentimental or more culturally palatable, the mystery of the incarnation speaks to our human condition.
Ethically, the incarnation upholds the worth and value of human life. Because the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, became fully human in Jesus Christ, we believe that God cares for the full person, mind-body-spirit. It has implications for how we treat our bodies and one another with dignity. Flesh and blood matters. Any part of our inherited story that involves harm to our bodies or violence is redeemed by the narrative of Christ. Christ's humanity informs us that the physical nature of existence is as important as the spiritual. In fact, the two are interconnected. This is good news.
The season of Lent looks toward Holy Week. While some yield to the propensity to disregard it, Lent calls the family of God into a season of reflection, fasting, prayer, introspection, and self-discipline. During this holy time of year, the Church clings to the cross and immerses herself in the mystery of Christ’s suffering for the sake of the world. The love of Christ reveals the character of God, who emptied himself to the point of death (Phil 2:7-8). As we journey through the six weeks of Lent, we confront our sin (both personal and collective) and realign ourselves in repentance with the vows made in our baptism.
Lent is part of God’s kingdom story. It teaches us that God cares deeply about human suffering. Christ was “despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain…Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering…and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:2-5). Christ identifies with our suffering and suffers with us. Any part of our inherited story that involves suffering and pain is redeemed by the narrative of Christ. Christ as our rescuer and redeemer provides us with the healing presence of the Holy Spirit and a new family to bear one another’s burdens in love (Gal 6:2).
Following Easter Sunday, we journey into a season of the liturgical calendar called The Great Fifty Days. This season calls the Church to celebrate the resurrection of Christ in exuberant praise ringing with alleluias! The highest and one of the most ancient seasons of the liturgical year, it is, in my experience, frequently the most unheard-of and neglected. Again, the story of Jesus’ resurrection is not a simple story, but a lived reality with life-changing ramifications. Jesus is risen. This truth shapes our entire identity as Christians.
We are Easter people. Though death surrounds us we have confidence that it has been swallowed up in victory and anything dead in this life can be resurrected. No situation, person, or circumstance exists outside the bounds of God’s redeeming power. The Church thus has the audacity to persevere in the face of extreme hardship or spread the good news joyfully in a world overtaken by despair. Because Jesus’ story is one of death and resurrection, our story is the same. Any part of our inherited story that involves death, despair, and destruction is redeemed by the narrative of Christ.
Each season and holy day in the liturgical calendar presents the complete, living kingdom story. The cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, The Great Fifty Days, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Ordinary Time, All Saints, and Christ the King teach us the grand narrative of salvation and help us to make sense of our inherited stories. We in the Church must retell the story over and over to remind ourselves that we have been freed from the bondage of our past or the identities that others have tried to place upon us. Yes, we receive individual and generational narratives. Yet our loving Father, the Creator of the cosmos, has welcomed us into a new family through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit we have been given a new kingdom story, one of resurrection, new life, and new creation.
Tesia L. Mallory is Dean of the Chapel and Lecturer in Worship at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.