Days and Seasons of the Church Year
At First Church we live by two calendars—the calendar of secular seasons, and a “liturgical” calendar, or the “Church Year.” The Church Year is based on the life of Jesus. By marking time according to his story year after year, we become more like him, as the colors, rituals and stories of the Christian seasons take hold in our hearts.Advent
Advent is the “January” of the Church Year. It comprises the four weeks before Christmas, a time of quiet, patient preparation for the birth of Jesus. Advent’s watchword is hope. In song, prayer, and ritual (for example, Advent wreaths and candle-lighting), we echo the deep longing for peace and justice of God’s people in ever age. We call on God to send the Promised One to usher in a new world of reconciliation and joy. The color purple (or blue) expresses Advent’s spirit of contemplation, penitence, and desire.
Christmas re-lives the birth of Jesus. Its cast of character is familiar—Mary, Joseph, the baby in the manger, trumpeting angels, and adoring shepherds. Christmas also includes events immediately following Jesus’ birth, such as the escape of the Holy Family into Egypt, told in the gospel of Matthew. It is a short, tender season marked by goodwill and peace. But Christmas is also a sober season—we honor a savior born into hunger and poverty—and the challenge of Christmas is never far from its delight. Its color is white, meaning fulfillment, joy and majesty.
Epiphany
This season focuses our attention on “revelation.” Our worship brings us many gospel stories (such as the visit of the wise men, or Magi, and Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River) in which God’s Spirit unveils to the whole world who Jesus is, and who he can become “for us and for our salvation.” Light in the darkness is the theme of this season. Like Christmas, whose joy it extends, Epiphany comes dressed in white.
Lent
The forty days of Lent prepare us to live into the events at the end of Jesus’ life—his cross and rising. Beginning with Ash Wednesday, Lenten worship faces us with our sins. We are called to let God’s mercy change our hearts. The season is filled with images of wilderness, thirst and conflict. In the ancient Church during Lent, neophytes prepared for baptism with study, prayer, and fasting. Purple is Lent’s color, signifying repentance and conversion.
Easter
The most joyful season of all, Easter begins with the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday. The season’s worship is punctuated by the surprising, comforting, and challenging presence of the risen Lord. Songs and stories remind us that God brings new life from certain death, and that with Christ, we too will be made new. Our mission, through words of hope and deeds of justice, is to announce and share God’s indestructible life with all creation. Easter wears white or gold, colors of triumph and fulfillment.
Pentecost
Pentecost Sunday commemorates the day when the gift of God’s Spirit fell on the early followers of Jesus, and everyone experienced the universal reach and reconciling power of God’s mercy. In the weeks that follow, we meditate on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, a member of the Church, and a witness in the world. This season is also called “Ordinary Time. “ It teaches us the sacred character of our ordinary lives and duties. The color red stands for the Spirit’s power. It is used on Pentecost Sunday and on all Sundays that celebrate the Church (dedications, anniversaries, ordinations, installations). Green, for life and growth, is used the rest of this season.
Other Commemorations and Celebrations
Christmas Day
In addition to a Christmas Eve candle-light service, we gather on Christmas morning for a service of holy communion and carol-singing.
Festival of Epiphany
Night of January 6. We celebrate the light of Christ with a community supper, a candle-light procession, and a renewal of baptism.
Commemoration of All Saints
Last Sunday of the Church Year. We celebrate the saints who surround us, living and dead, ordinary and extraordinary.
Ash Wednesday
First night of Lent. We acknowledge our origins in the dust, our brokenness, and our dependence on God, and receive ashes as a sign of mortality.
Palm Sunday
Last Sunday of Lent. We remember Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem. We greet him with a “parade” of young and old, waving palms and singing traditional songs, as we enter the sanctuary to begin the morning service.
Maundy Thursday
We recall the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples, to love one another as he loved us. We also remember his last meal with his friends by celebrating holy communion. And in a darkened sanctuary, we call to mind Jesus’ anguish and arrest in the Garden of Gesthemene.
Good Friday
We lament the world’s pain and injustice, and we honor the death of the Lord on the cross of shame.
Re-Gathering Sunday
Second Sunday of September. We give thanks for our congregation’s life, and for the vision of A Way of Hospitality we received from the Spirit.
Peace Sabbath
Annually, in the morning service, we recommit ourselves to God’s work of creating a different world by focusing on a social action theme.
Healing Sundays
On four Sundays during the year at the morning service, and on several others at Jazz5:30, we pray for health and wholeness in our lives, our congregation, and in the world. We are also invited to receive a sign of God’s healing love (prayer, soothing oil, “laying-on-of-hands”).
Footwashing
On Palm Sunday, the Jazz5:30 community practices the ancient Christian ritual of footwashing, in imitation of Jesus’ gesture of service and humility towards his followers on the night before he died.