| Visual Elements - Seasons & Colors |
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Liturgical Seasons and Colors Liturgical Season Color Meaning Advent dark blue hope/night sky Christmastide white/gold joy/Christ as our light Epiphany green growth in Christ Lent purple repentance Eastertide white/gold joy/great celebration Ordinary Time green growth in our faith Festivals Christmas white/gold joy/Christ as our light Epiphany white/gold joy/Christ as our light Easter white/gold joy/great celebration
Pentecost Sunday
red
fire of the Holy Spirit |
| ADVENT |
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Advent, the season of joyful anticipation and hope, begins our church year. Advent means “coming” or “arrival”. The season of Advent has three elements – celebrating the birth of the Christ child, waiting for His Second Coming and preparing ourselves spiritually as those who are walking in darkness and awaiting a great light (Isaiah 9)! This is a season of waiting! We read the prophecies from the Old Testament and remember the generations of Jews that waited and longed for the promised Messiah. As we await the Lord’s Second Coming with joyful anticipation this Advent, we have the opportunity to reflect on our spiritual journey as individuals and as a congregation. The story of redemption takes us to the manger. Christ was born a babe for us – to die on a cross for our sins – to rise to life – to reign with God the Father and to come again! Dark blue, the color of Advent, represents the night sky, the promise of a light coming to the darkness (John 8:12), and Christ our Morning Star (Rev 22:16). |
| CHRISTMASTIDE |
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“Think of the Lord’s birth, wherein the Word became Flesh, not as a past event which we recall, but as a present reality upon which we gaze.” Leo the Great (440 AD) said these words and they remain a grand statement on the season of Christmastide. For many, this season (lasting until January 6 which is Epiphany) is referred to as the “12 days of Christmas”. It is the time of the church year we live the Incarnation and consider the implications of the connection between cradle and cross. The great Advent song, O Come O Come Emmanuel has been transformed into a statement of reality and experience in our own hearts and lives. 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 is a key verse, along with the gospel narratives: For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (NKJ) A Prayer for Christmas Almighty God, you have given your only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin; grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen [from the Book of Common Prayer] |
| Current Season: ORDINARY TIME |
Ordinary Time takes its name from the Latin word, ordinal, which means numbered. The numbered weeks in the liturgical year represent the weeks from Epiphany also known as Three Kings Day (the end of Christmastide) until Ash Wednesday (beginning of Lent) and again from the Pentecost (end of Eastertide) until the first Sunday of Advent. The emphasis during this time of the church year is unlike the other times. Where Advent, Christmastide, Eastertide, Pentecost, and the other seasons and feasts celebrate specific acts within the story of salvation, Ordinary Time directs our energy towards the Sunday to Sunday rhythm of the Christian life. This season presents each Sunday as the celebration of the grand story of salvation, the presence of the Christ today as we live and breathe in Him, and a great anticipation of future events yet to unfold. This reminder of the Sunday rhythm in our lives points us towards cycles of work and rest all set within the context of a God who was and is and is to come. It is in this pattern that we live until Advent. Green has been associated with Ordinary Time, a season of new life and growth. In Christian tradition, green came to symbolize the life of the church following Pentecost, as well as symbolizing the hope that Christ’s resurrection brings. |
| LENT |
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"Remember, thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return." Ash Wednesday, the day of the personal ashes, the first of the forty days of Lent: Like a deep bell tolling, this word defines the day and starts the season and bids me begin my devotional journey: "Remember!" This is as simple as it gets: if you do not interrupt your life with convictions of the death to come, then neither shall your death, when it comes, be interrupted by life. Ancient is this warning of the church--so ancient that the modern Christian is embarrassed to find her church ignorant, contrary to the freedoms of this age. Ancient, likewise, is the season of Lent, when the Christian is encouraged to think of her death and the sin that caused it--to examine herself, to know herself so deeply and well that knowledge becomes confession. Lent, the season for repentance and self-examination, begins with Ash Wednesday and ends at sunrise Easter morning. It is a forty day period of time, modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness fasting and praying to prepare for his ministry, not including Sundays. Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is a joyful remembrance of what the Lord did for us and His victory over death on the very first Lord’s Day, Easter. The hope of this season is for a personal revival and a deeper commitment to take up our cross and follow Him. The Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. provides the first record of this season as a forty day season. It originally began as a time of preparation for those being baptize on Easter. Many felt that a time of preparation for the great yearly Lord’s Day, Easter, was necessary for all Christians. Soon it became a time of prayer, fasting and repentance for all Christians in order to more fully celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. |
| EASTERTIDE |
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad, alleluia!” A new day bursts forth from the chaos of darkness and death bringing with it hope and life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The church calls that glorious day Easter and celebrates the breaking in of God’s Kingdom for 50 days until Pentecost. It is the culmination of Jesus’ passion which led through the cross. The crucifixion seemed to be a dark time, the moment of Christ’s defeat. In truth, it was the beginning of the victory. Just as evil thought it had Christ in its clutches for once and for all, the image turns upside down, and Christ emerges as victor. And he reaches down into the darkness of our chaos and death and brings up the dead, beginning with Adam and Eve. From that darkness we, too, will be raised. O Happy Day! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! |
| ORDINARY TIME |
See description of Ordinary Time above. Ordinary Time after Eastertide will take us to the beginning of the new church year starting with Advent. |
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| For more information on seasons,
www.cresourcei.org is a great resource to check out. |
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