The Troll and Ogre have now been writing for a whole year. There are a few regular visitors, and there have been a number of transient visitors over the last year. This cycle of days that we call a calendar has brought about a season of change unlike any other for me. But rather than dwell upon my year, I would like for this New Year to focus upon that cycle we call a year in terms of the Church Calendar.
A week ago, we celebrated the start of the year, with the Birth of Jesus. But really, isn’t that just the beginning of the New Testament cycle? When do we as Christians learn and grow to understand the Old Testament? When do we take time to understand the events that lead up to Christmas Day? How do we understand why God required of Himself to condescend to become fully human if we do not understand the events of redemptive history that preceded that eventuality?
We do not know God. We do not understand His Holiness. We do not understand sin. We do not understand death. We do not understand righteousness. We do not understand Salvation. We do not understand that we have lost all of this knowledge.
And yet, it is there for us to read in printed form, the Word of God. The lessons are there to be read. The teachers exist who can lead us to understand the meaning of the Old Covenants. The teachers exist who can lead us to understand the New Covenant in Christ. The Scripture reveals all that we need to understand God, His Holiness, sin, death, righteousness and Salvation. We need teachers who teach about Christ.
Therefore, Christmas, which many consider the beginning, is actuality the climax. Christmas is the moment when God condescends to become man, to intervene on our behalf as one of us, to fulfill all of the Law and the Prophets. Everything that comes afterwards is a necessary part of the drama that leads inexorably to Easter.
Lent is a season before Easter that is about Atonement. We have lost the meaning of Lent. It has become the symbol of piety and pseudo-pious displays of deprivation, meant to impress each other rather than God. Lent, instead could be a season to learn and understand about the Old Covenant symbolism, the types and shadows that will be fulfilled at Golgotha. Lent might be an opportunity to learn about the Holiness of God and the complete desolation and death of sin, but it is an opportunity that we eagerly forgo for the opportunity to turn inward and focus on our own piety and righteousness, no longer realizing the emptiness of that gesture.
Easter is the holiday about which Christians seem to be most embarrassed. In some circles, it is fashionable to celebrate Passover with Sadder suppers, never once focusing on the events of the first Passover outside of the lentils sealed by Lambs blood soaked hyssop branches. Holy week so closely mirrors and yet completely outshines Passover that perhaps the close connections are hidden from us now. The game of types and shadows that Christ plays with the whole of the Old Testament is broken into pieces so small, that all the king’s men cannot endeavor to put the story back together again. The unbroken thread of redemptive history is tangled beyond recognition for all but the most diligent scholar, a game that used to be child’s play.
After Easter, we learn about Pentecost and the Ascension. Instead of the vicarious substitutionary atonement, we get the substitutionary salvation and continuous special revelation, inwardly derived and superior to the antiquated written Word. Perhaps, just maybe, Jesus had a higher view of the Word than this. John calls Jesus the Word. Perhaps the Word should be viewed with greater esteem that these later, nonscriptural, personal revelations, dreams and visions, inspired by spirits, no doubt, but doubtlessly not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is described as the Helper, not the Savior.
We have that long season of the Trinity that links us to the last season of the Church calendar. The Trinity are easily named by most, and easily explained by few. Their relationship and their unity of substance is no longer considered a worthy topic for teaching, no longer relevant. We do not need to know God to have a personal relationship with God. We just jump right into “personal” relationship with the internal projection of what and who we think God should be, rather than who God reveals Himself to be through His Word and Sacraments. The Trinity season, an opportunity to do so much of the background teaching, is instead lost in the American ritual of summer vacation, because we all know that God needs a holiday as well.
And finally, Advent ends the calendar. After the long season of Trinity, that season that symbolizes this long period known as the Last Days, we come to Advent, the season about the Second Coming of Jesus, the season about the beginning of the Age to Come, the season about Revelation, Judgment and Salvation, the season about Resurrection and everlasting life. Advent has become a shopping season rather than a season of learning about our certain future hope for Salvation through our faith in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and His Resurrection and Ascension, Firstborn from the Dead, Prophet, Priest and King. Advent is the most Christian of seasons, and the most lost in our present evil age.
I had a year to remember. I started a blog. I ended a career and started another. I began in earnest a process of learning that will continue for several years to come. And yet, I can say today, that I am ready. I will not be caught unawares by the thief in the night. There is oil in the lamp and my best rags on my back. You will find me, from time to time, here, under my bridge. I will take time to teach, when the weary, wandering soul takes refuge here with me. I will offer a rock or chair for sitting and a rock or bread for eating. And I will teach. There remains much for me to learn, but the gulf between where I was a decade past and now has become so vast, that I am certain that I was in good mind deciding to teach, and not wait for the conferment of credentials by man. I will continue to teach.
The warnings of Peter (2 Peter 2:1) mean much to me now. I understand their import and their gravity. There is a responsibility with claiming the title of teacher. Those who do not believe in judgment do not fear it, to their personal and particular peril. Those who do not understand righteousness, do not fear judgment to their impending surprise, shock and bewilderment. Those who understand righteousness and its source, have full and certain hope in the One who has declared them blameless before God, and they must teach.
2011 was a most interesting year. 2012 will be spectacular.
Maranatha!
Troll and Ogre
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