6 Sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin
offering hast thou not required. 7 Then said I, Lo, I come:
in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8 I delight to do thy will, O my
God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have preached righteousness in
the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
10 I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not
concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
(Psalms 40:6-10)
The hymn of today's devotion is a children's hymn though most adults will
profit measurably from it. We tend to forget the purpose of the church calendar
and need reminding from time to time. Amazingly, one hundred years ago, most
children had a better understanding of the Church Year than most adults do
today. There were no multiple-choice questions offered by the catechist whom
all must satisfy ere confirmation. Baptism, Confirmation, Worship, and Holy
living were matters of far greater import to those former generations.
The lyrics for this hymn were written by Miss A. Katherine Hankey in 1888 for
the Sunday School of St. Peter's Parish, Eaton Square, London. The accompanying
music is (Innocents) Keine Schönheit Hat die Welt, composed in
1657 by Johann Scheffler. The hymn informs us of the sequence of the Church
Calendar from Advent to Trinity - a subject well worth our consideration at
this beginning of a new church year. The Church Calendar and Lectionary
are a rich heritage of the ancient church which opens up the entire plan of God
in His Word to His people. Unfortunately, many churches today have no
familiarity with this important asset; but it represents the Cycle of Life of
the Church Militant.
Advent Tells Us, Christ is Near
Advent tells us, Christ is near:
Christmas tells us Christ is here!
In Epiphany we trace
All the glory of His grace.
Those three Sundays before Lent
Will prepare us to repent;
That in Lent we may begin
Earnestly to mourn for sin.
Holy Week and Easter, then,
Tell who died and rose again;
O that happy Easter day!
“Christ is risen indeed,” we say.
Yes, and Christ ascended, too,
To prepare a place for you;
So we give Him special praise,
After those great forty days.
Then, He sent the Holy Ghost,
On the day of Pentecost,
With us ever to abide:
Well may we keep Whitsuntide!
Last of all, we humbly sing
Glory to our God and King,
Glory to the One in three,
On the Feast of Trinity.
"Advent tells us, Christ is near: Christmas tells us Christ is here! In
Epiphany we trace
All the glory of His grace." ADVENT Season is a time
of preparation - preparation for the coming Son of God. When visitors are
coming, especially important ones, how we plan and labor to make all things
just right to receive them. The same is true of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have
had centuries to prepare the Way prior to His first Advent, and only God knows
the years, days, or minutes we have remaining to prepare for His second Advent.
The Wise Men began their journey in Advent, and Mary and Joseph made the
perilous journey over rugged mountain and rocky road to Bethlehem during that
Advent - all in preparation for the realization of promised Light from old time
in the Person of God's only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The expectations and
hopes of Advent were comprehended in that fateful night more than two thousand
years ago - a night which we call CHRISTMAS - such an august date that the
whole world measures her calendar from before and after it.
Christmas concluded a period of four hundred years during which there was no
light from Heaven - not a word, nor an angelic message, was received by Israel
from Malachi to John the Baptist. But God is faithful to His Word so that in
the fullness of time, God sent us a Savior. "But when the fulness of
the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."
(Gal 4:4-5) The
preceding four centuries of darkness in Israel contrasted mightily with the
brilliant Light of His Coming and added to the great glory of it. Sometimes God
conceals Himself in the darkest moments of our day in order to make more
glorious the Light which He is preparing to give us. We are in an extended
ADVENT Season today awaiting the glorious return of our Lord. His royal entry
into Jerusalem on the Passover Week of His Passion foreshadows that glorious
return of Christ spoken of by John the Revelator in Rev. 19:11-21. The
Christmas Season of the Reformation Church extends for twelve days until
EPIPHANY. Epiphany refers to the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles
and is most admirably exemplified in the coming of the Magi, following the Star
of Bethlehem, bearing gifts from the East - gifts of prophetic merit, GOLD
(royalty), Frankincense (worshipful), and myrrh (healing and death).
"Those three Sundays before Lent Will prepare us to repent; That in
Lent we may begin Earnestly to mourn for sin." The life of
the Church is always one of preparation and hope. Our work is never done on
earth. After Epiphany comes a period of three Sundays of repentance and
preparation for the great sorrow during Lent for our sins and, more importantly,
the great price our Savior paid in our redemption of them. The fasting
observance of Lent instills a necessary discipline to the Christian life. The
things that we value highly may be placed aside as a sign of our grief, and
love, for the Savior who died in our stead. Quite often, our bodies (and souls)
are made stronger for the abstinence from foods and drinks which are almost
always excess.
"Holy Week and Easter, then, Tell who died and rose again; O that
happy Easter day! "“Christ is risen indeed,”" we say."
The days of the week preceding Easter might be compared to those four hundred
years of darkness without light of the intertestamental period from Malachi to
the Coming of Christ. The betrayals and horrors of this week would make all seem
hopeless to the disciples concluding in the death of our Lord. Anguish of soul
for sins that have led to the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory is keenly felt
by all who love and obey God. Even on the cross, from the 6th hour until
the ninth (noon until 3 P.M.), a pervasive darkness covered the land until
Christ surrendered His Spirit unto His Father. Christ was buried very near the
beginning of Sabbath at sunset. He rested in the tomb over Sabbath, and rose at
the dawn of the third day (sometime past sunset on the Sabbath and before
Sunrise on Sunday. But at the moment of darkness surrounding the Garden Tomb,
such a blinding and effulgent Light as was never before seen burst through the
stone door of the Tomb, and the guards were struck unconscious by it. It was
the glorious Easter we celebrate in our Church Year, and the Passover for all
who know and love the Lord and His Father. Easter has been said to be the most
important day in the Church Year, but, remember, there could have been no
Easter without a first Christmas!
"Yes, and Christ ascended, too, To prepare a place for you; So we
give Him special praise, After those great forty days."
ASCENSIONTIDE begins the continued work of our Lord in Heaven in preparing a
place for us, His Church and Bride. "In
my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also." (John 14:2-3) It was customary in those days
in Judea for a young man betrothed to His Bride to go away and prepare a place
for the Bride under the supervision of the Father. When the accommodations were
satisfactory, the Father would send the Son to receive His Bride for the
Wedding Feast - sometimes a period of one to two years; but in our biblical
wait for the return of Christ, the period is without stipulation. He was
received, appropriately, by a cloud at His ascension. Perhaps the same cloud
which covered Him as He followed Israel across the Red Sea Waters, or that same
cloud that covered His Presence atop Sinai at the giving of the Law, or even that
glory cloud that covered His appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration. But,
ascend to the Father, He did, and there remains at the right Hand of the Father
to intercede on our behalf as our High Priest.
"Then, He sent the Holy Ghost, On the day of Pentecost, With us ever
to abide: Well may we keep Whitsuntide!" Pentecost occurs
on the seventh Sunday after Easter. It symbolizes the descent of the Holy Ghost
upon the disciples (all disciples of Christ) and is based on the old Jewish
holy day of Shavuoth, the spring Harvest festival. The Spring Harvest was the
first harvest of the year and the Holy Ghost came to seal the first harvest of
the Church. In the Anglican tradition, this day is called Whitsuntide.
"Last of
all, we humbly sing Glory to our God and King, Glory to the One in three, On
the Feast of Trinity." In the ages before
Christ, we only knew God as our Father. The Son remained veiled in the clouds
and mist of our unknowing; but at Easter, we came to know Father and Son. At
the falling of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostolic Church, we came to know the
fullness of the Divine and Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We
observe Trinity Sunday on the Sunday following Pentecost and the season usually
extends for at least twenty four Sunday's until Sunday next before Advent.
Trinity Season is the longest season in the Church Year and is a product
exclusively of the English Church. Other churches, not taught by English
missionaries, refer to the Sunday's in Trinity as the number of Sunday's 'after
Pentecost.' We gather the name of TRINITY from the Gospel for the day of
Trinity Sunday of our Lord's midnight meeting with Nicodemus. The greater
subject of that meeting was conversion and baptism whose formula has always
followed in the Name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Ghost.
So in this sweet little children's hymn we have the comprehension of the full
Church Year. The purpose of the Church Year is to keep the Church centered on
the whole life of Christ to include the Law and prophets of the Old Testament
period. It forces the clergy and laity to focus on all of the Scripture
concerning Christ (and all Scripture concerns Christ) and not to focus only on
those passages that have become our favorites in time past. I have found in
preaching the Lectionary, my favorites have become whatever text the
lectionary calls for on a given Sunday. I been forced to grow in understanding
from the preaching of the Church Year. We all may be so blessed if we study all
Scripture with serious intent and hope.
