Christmas and the Church Calendar
Introduction
As Advent season is here and Christmas is fast approaching, I wanted to offer a few reflections about holidays, Christmas church services, and the church calendar. Many church traditions embrace some or all of the church calendar, which divides up the year into different seasons around special holy days. The Presbyterian and Reformed churches historically have not utilized the church calendar and in fact have adamantly rejected it.
What I hope to do in this post is highlight some of the reasons why our tradition does not embrace the church calendar, while yet many of our churches will still celebrate certain holidays, like Christmas and Easter. In doing so, I hope to explain our church’s current practice (and invite you to join us for our Christmas Eve service).
Here’s the main idea: We can celebrate certain of these religious holidays so long as we remember that the Lord’s Day is the holy day prescribed in Scripture. Moreover, we should only recognize those additional holidays (that is, holy days) that explicitly point us back to the person and work of Christ. These days are sometimes referred to as the evangelical feast days, which I will discuss in a moment. These point us back to Christ, and do not celebrate, venerate, or recognize saints or anyone else—they are all about Christ.
So, what do I mean by all this? Let’s begin with a quick history of the church calendar.
What Is the Church Calendar?
Dr. J.V. Fesko recently published an article on the church calendar in which he provides a helpful account of its history and ostensible benefit. I won’t repeat all of it here and I encourage you to go and read it for yourself. But put succinctly, the church calendar was designed to follow the events of Christ’s life, beginning with the season of Advent that leads to his birth, the Christmas season, followed by Epiphany, then Lent leading up to Easter, after which his Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday are also celebrated.
All of that might sound great to you. What would be wrong with celebrating these moments of Jesus’ life and ministry, and organizing our year around these momentous events? In his book Leading in Worship, Terry Johnson articulates four warnings for churches who might be tempted to embrace the church calendar:1 First, Scripture does not mandate the church calendar but rather, second, the only holy days required for Christians are the fifty-two Sundays every year and strict adherence to the church calendar can diminish the centrality of regular, weekly Sabbath worship. Third, the church calendar can break up the sequential expository preaching through God’s Word. And fourth, the church year itself has dubious historical origins that only began around AD 350; there is no indication the early church employed a church calendar as it exists today.
With these warnings in mind, Johnson concludes, “While many will perhaps not want to go as far in completely rejecting the church year as the Scottish Presbyterians and Puritans (of whom it was said, they worked in their fields on Christmas day in order to witness to their Catholic neighbors), Reformed churches would do well to follow the example of the Continental Reformed churches in limiting their church year to what has been called the five evangelical feast days…In this way, the high points of the Gospel message would be commemorated in Reformed churches annually…without becoming entangled in the full calendar cycle.”2
These five evangelical feast days, which I previously mentioned above, are Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, with Trinity Sunday often added to this list as well. Most (if not all) American evangelical churches celebrate Christmas and Easter. Many will also include a Good Friday service. The other days (Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday) are almost unheard of outside of church calendar contexts.
Within the Reformed tradition there has been much debate, which Terry Johnson highlights by mentioning the differences between the Scottish Presbyterian and the Dutch Reformed (or Continental) traditions. While some would argue that the Reformed position is a total abstinence from the church calendar and church holidays, that is not historically accurate.
Here is what the Dutch Reformed tradition has to say about these evangelical feast days, from the Church Order of Dort, Article 67: “The Churches shall observe, in addition to Sunday, also Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, with the following day, and whereas in most of the cities and provinces of the Netherlands the day of Circumcision and of Ascension of Christ are also observed, Ministers in every place where this is not yet done shall take steps with the Government to have them conform with the others.”3
From this statement, we get a fuller picture of what the Reformed churches believed about these holidays. There was not a strict uniformity between all the Reformed churches, whether in Scotland or on the European continent. Nevertheless, there was a shared conviction about the central importance and indispensable nature of Lord’s Day (Sunday) worship. Nothing, no matter how good or beneficial it might be, must take away from the regular corporate worship of God’s people on his day.
Our Practice
At Christ the King, we want to embrace our Confessional and Reformed Heritage (one of our Foundations), and employ all that our rich tradition has to offer. That includes special worship services throughout the year. We have historically celebrated Christmas (and Christmas Eve), Good Friday, and Easter. Last year we also recognized and held a Trinity Sunday service. At this service, we read through and confessed the Nicene Creed together, and I preached a sermon specifically addressing the doctrine of the Trinity. We received a lot of good feedback from that service, including from someone who said he had never before heard a sermon preached on the Trinity.
It is a simple matter of fact that many will come to our church on Christmas and Easter who would not otherwise. It is a good thing that as a society, broadly speaking, we still celebrate the historical events of Jesus’ birth and resurrection (whether we give Christ his proper recognition during these seasons is another matter). We would do well as a church to take advantage of these opportunities to clearly preach the gospel message at these special services knowing that there will undoubtedly be visitors in attendance who would otherwise not darken the doors of the church the rest of the year.
In light of all the above, we do have tentative plans to include special services for Ascension and Pentecost this coming year, while continuing to celebrate Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Trinity Sunday.4 In doing so, we do not want to supplant or diminish the centrality of Lord’s Day worship, but rather engage with our rich tradition and provide opportunities for all, visitors and dedicated members alike, to celebrate all that Christ has done in history and continues to do in his church.
Let me reiterate, however, that nothing will ever take away from the regular, weekly rhythm of Lord’s Day worship. Every Sunday, we will continue to proclaim Jesus’ birth (Christmas), his death (good Friday), his resurrection (Easter), his ascension, the gift of his indwelling Spirit (Pentecost), and the inseparable work of the triune God (Trinity Sunday) in salvation. In doing so, that means every Sunday is resurrection Sunday. Every Sunday is Christmas Day morning. Every Sunday should include reminders of all the aspects of Christ’s person and work. Yet, shared culture is good, and we can and will celebrate these holidays as further means to preach the good news of Jesus Christ in season and out of season.
May God bless you this Christmas season as you remember, meditate on, marvel at, and rest in wonder about the greatness of our God in the incarnation of his Son, our Savior. And as you do so, join us in worshipping him this Sunday, and every Sunday.
Notes
1. Terry L. Johnson, Leading in Worship (The Covenant Foundation, 1996), 103–4.
2. Johnson, Leading in Worship, 104.
3. The Church Order of Dort was first published in 1618 along with the Canons of Dort. These documents were the result of the work of the Synod of Dort which was called by the Dutch Reformed churches to settle the controversy arising from the errors of Arminianism.
4. We do not have plans, however, to begin observances of other parts of the church calendar, like Ash Wednesday and Lent, which have no biblical warrant and do unnecessarily detract from Lord’s Day worship. See this article from Carl Trumen where he provides a strong critique against the adoption of these practices by Reformed and Presbyterian churches.