June 4th Weekly Word

A New and Exciting Season

I love ordinary time, and not just because it's the time that things settle down a bit for clergy (that's just a myth by the way). I love it for what it stands for. That might seem strange to some, given the fact that the other seasons in the church calendar appear to have more content and character.

Advent, for instance, is the season during which we prepare for the coming of the Lord. Christmas, of course, is the celebration of the Jesus' nativity. Epiphany is the time of unveiling revelations while Lent calls us to repentance. As we all know, Holy Week marks the passion of Christ, and it all culminates with Eastertide and Jesus' resurrection, which wraps up on Pentecost and the sending of the Spirit.

So what comes next? Ordinary time. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? Some might even interpret it as a descent from the mountain top into dullness.

But the name of this season doesn't mean ordinary in the sense of dull, normal or plain. Rather ordinary simply refers to the "ordered" nature of the weeks after Pentecost. Even so, I think ordinary time finds its content and character in its other name: green season.

Green, of course, indicates growth, flourishing, life. But the only way such vitality is possible for God's people is if it comes on the heels of the seasons that preceded it. Think again about how the other seasons feature the life-giving work of Christ to secure our redemption and the coming of the Holy Spirit to establish the new life of the Church.

You see, the content of those seasons has led us to this one where we are called to live into the "greenness" of God's new life in us — and sent to share it with the world.

We see this play out in the book of Acts after Pentecost. God uses his people to share the life-giving message of the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and beyond that to the "ends of the earth." And the result? Transformation — even empire-wide transformation. So green season really corresponds to Acts after the coming of the Spirit.

Friends, this why I love this time. As new creation ourselves through the redemptive work of Christ and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, we are now to extend this new life to a world that desperately needs it. And Jesus tells us that if we do this as we abide in him, he will produce the fruit — the life, the transformation. What a wonderful promise that I hope inspires in us excitement and maybe even joy.

Will you join me this green season and step into that call? It's a call that finds its purpose and power through the work that God has done for us through Christ. As such, it's a call similar to the dismissal, marking the closing moment of our weekly worship service, but the beginning of our weekly charge to be conduits of God's new creation in the world.

Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit!

Darin+