Why We Observe the Traditional Church Calendar by Steven Nicoletti Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA), Tacoma WA Here at Faith Presbyterian Church, we observe If you do a Bible-in-a-year reading program, the traditional Church calendar: Advent in then you have probably read through (and maybe December, followed by Christmas and then struggled through) the second half of the book of Epiphany. In the spring we celebrate Easter, and Exodus, followed by the book of Leviticus. And then Ascension, and Pentecost. Leading up to when you finish reading the second half of Exodus Easter, we observe the season of Lent: We have and the entirety of Leviticus, as a modern Christian, banners up that remind us of the suffering and the you probably have a whole lot of questions about a death of Christ. We have a purple cloth over the lot of different things. But one question you don’t cross. Our prayers and our liturgy emphasize the have (if you are paying any attention at all) is this: themes of Christ’s death for us, as well as our death Does God care how we worship him? to sin. Because the second half of Exodus and the But why do we do this? whole Book of Leviticus are filled with details Many Christians (especially many evangelicals) spoken by God about how he wants to be worshiped. do not observe the Church calendar, except for God cares about how he is worshiped. Christmas and Easter. Other churches (especially And lest we take all that data as merely a base churches from a Reformed background) can be quite or a starting point to which we are free to add hostile to the Church calendar. My wife and I were whatever we want, we are given the account of members of a church at one point that made a point Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10. There we are told of doing nothing out of the ordinary on Easter, and how Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron the high when passing reference was made to the fact that it priest, each offered “unauthorized fire before the was Easter, more time was spent emphasizing how LORD, which he had not commanded them.” Nadab that Sunday was no different from any other and Abihu took God’s commandments for the Sunday, than was spent saying anything about sacrifices and burnt offering they were to bring Easter in particular. before the Lord in worship, and they added a While many newer or younger churches in our different one to the mix – one God had not region of the PCA celebrate the Church calendar, commanded. And how does God respond? We read still, many other churches in our denomination do in Leviticus 10:2: “And fire came out from before not, and many would view something like the the LORD and consumed them, and they died before celebration of Lent with a lot of suspicion. Isn’t it the LORD.” God struck them down for offering Catholic? Isn’t it un-Reformed? Isn’t it adding to worship of their own devising – worship that was God’s commandments for worship? contrary to what the Lord had commanded himself. Our goal here is to spend some time considering So the principle that quickly emerges at the those sorts of questions: to give a big picture of how beginning of the Bible is that the Lord tells his I think we should understand and approach our use people how to worship him, and we are not to do of the liturgical calendar. To do that, we’ll ask eight what seems right in our own eyes, but are to follow questions. Each of these questions and answers his commands. This concept of looking to the Bible could easily be a full article or sermon in and of for direction in our worship is often called “The itself … but I’ve tried to focus instead on the big Regulative Principle.” The Westminster Confession picture of how the church calendar fits into our of Faith (part of the constitution of our church and corporate worship and our individual devotion. our denomination) expresses this in chapter one and chapter twenty-one. In chapter one, it says that I. Direction on the Structure of Worship “there are some circumstances concerning the And our first question, appropriately enough, is: worship of God […] which are ordered by the light Where do we get direction on how we should of nature and Christian prudence, according to the structure our worship? general rules of the Word” [WCF I.6]. But the bulk And the answer for us is: the Bible. And the of the concept then comes in chapter twenty-one, Bible itself gives us this answer. where we read: “The acceptable way of worshipping 1 the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited to the New Testament for practices testified to there, by his own revealed will, that he may not be but it also pays a lot of attention to what the Old worshipped according to the imaginations and Testament has to say about worship. As it does, it devices of men […] or any other way not prescribed seeks neither to simply repeat Old Testament in the Holy Scripture.” [WCF XXI.1] practices or to ignore them, but it asks how the The Bible is where we get direction for how we principles behind those Old Testament practices should structure our worship. That ought to settle should be transformed and applied in Christian things. Worship. [Farley, “Biblical Worship”, 602] Only, it does not. Because Christians have and In other words, there are meanings, symbolisms, continue to differ on what exactly that means. and principles in Old Testament worship that we are Dr. Michael Farley, an adjunct professor at not merely to ignore or cast aside, but about which Covenant Theological Seminary, in his paper titled we are instead to ask how they can and should be “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship?” points out that there applied to our context after the life, death, and are three different versions of the regulative resurrection of Jesus Christ. [Farley, “Biblical principle at work in the major schools of evangelical Worship”, 609] thought on worship. And we see examples of this already in the The first is a regulative principle based on the Scriptures. Fire falls on the heads of the Apostles at practices given in the New Testament alone. He Pentecost, as it did in the past on the tabernacle and writes that this approach “defines the norm for temple, indicating that the Church is the new human Christian worship as the apostolic practice of temple of God [Acts 2]. Paul explains to the corporate worship in the first-century church. Thus, Colossians that the meaning of Old Testament according to this principle, liturgical practices are circumcision has been taken up into the practice of biblical only if there are explicit NT commands or New Testament baptism [Col 2:11-12]. In the normative examples of those particular practices.” gospels we see how the Old Testament Passover [Farley, “Biblical Worship”, 592] meal is transformed by Christ into the New The second version of the regulative principle Testament Lord’s Supper [Matt 26:17-29]. The focuses more on New Testament theology and early Apostle Peter speaks of the Church as a holy church history. This version of the regulative priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices [1 Peter 2:4- principle also relies on the New Testament alone for 5]. We could go on and on. When it comes to the its biblical foundations, but it expands its approach worship of God’s people, there is not a hard break by not only looking for explicit commands or and starting from scratch at the death and examples of practices in the New Testament, but resurrection of Jesus, but a transformation of also considers how certain practices might embody everything that has come before. and express theological truths taught in the And this should make sense to us as a Scriptures. And with those two concepts in mind, congregation. For decades our church has stressed this approach often looks to the liturgies of the early the fact that the whole Bible speaks to who God is, church for its ideals on what worship should be like. who we are, and how we are to relate to God and [Farley, “Biblical Worship”, 597] live in relationship to him. We are not a New- The problem, Farley argues, with both of these Testament Church, we are a Whole-Bible Church. views is that when it comes to the biblical basis of Of course we need to read the whole Bible through Christian worship, they rely almost exclusively on the lens of where we are now in redemptive history, the New Testament – casting aside as irrelevant the but we know that the entire Bible is relevant to our majority of the Christian Scriptures: The Old Christian lives. Testament. And so, coming back to our first question: Which brings us to the third version of the Where do we get direction on how we should regulative principle. This version of the regulative structure our worship? Our answer is the Bible. But principle seeks to bring the whole Bible to bear on not just part of the Bible – the whole Bible. The the question of Christian worship. This means that whole Bible gives us direction on how we should while it values the wisdom that can be encapsulated structure our worship. in the liturgies of the historic church, it places primary emphasis on the role of the Bible.