Seasons of Worship and the Seasons of Life

As American

people, we emerged from this past week with what I hope is more than a couple

of extra pounds! Perhaps we have emerged with a deeper sense of gratitude for all

of God’s blessings. Now that we have stepped through the door of Thanksgiving,

we have entered what is customarily called the holiday season. This coming

Sunday, the season of Advent begins. Like you, I simply love the smells and

sights, the lights and traditions of this time of year.

There is

something very earthy, very primordial about worship being embedded in our

annual seasons. The deepest worship experience of the heart comes from

realizing that worship is not a singular event designed to give you something

practical you can use. Rather, worship is a life, a rhythm, an entry into the

life of God and into the sacred story. When we give ourselves to the spiritual

life of worship, rather than coming to it with our own expectations about what

it should “do” for us, the deepest worship begins to happen in our hearts.

For this

reason, the church has given us a holy gift in observing seasons of the

Christian year. Our worship moments are guideposts along the way of life, and

they are designed to immerse ourselves in the whole of the gospel story from

start to finish. This last week was the big finale, Christ the King Sunday,

when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. This week, the circle of life

begins again. We go back to the deep longing for a Messiah, one who is to come

and redeem the broken world we live in.

We are

seasonal people in so many ways. On the largest level, there is an essentially

seasonal nature of our existence. We go through seasons of our life as we age

and through seasons in our relationships and our spirituality. On a slightly

smaller level, each year we go through seasons that relate to the revolution of

the earth around the sun. Our whole world goes through these seasons. Our

worship life does, too, and we connect with the gospel story from beginning to

end. On an even smaller level, each week has its seasons … it begins with the

Lord’s Day of worship, we plunge into our work and projects, and we rest and

play. On the smallest level, even our days themselves are seasonal … there is morning,

noon, and night. There is time to eat, time to work, time to relax, and time to

sleep.

The seasons

of life, the seasons of the year, and the seasons of the day all remind us that

we are people of the seasons. And here we go again.

It saddens

me when cultural observances seem to take precedence in our minds over the holy

days of the Christian year. As we go from Christ the King Sunday to the first

Sunday of Advent, I invite you to enter the holy rhythm of worship life that

has profoundly shaped generations of Christians. The life-changing glory of

worship is that we worship in context of a greater movement of grace!

Originally at Musings of a Musical Preacher Read the original ↗