My interest in the Church Calendar and its seasons started a bit by accident. From childhood through my college years, I attended evangelical and non-denominational churches which really only concerned themselves with select seasons of the Church Year (primarily around the Christmas and Easter holy days). When I started attending a Lutheran church, I just went along with the flow and didn’t think much about the seasons, until one day a church member asked me to help change the paraments on the altar after church. After assisting, I was taken to “the banner room” where I was shown a calendar of the Church Year and voluntold “these are the other days the banners need to be changed”. Apparently, I was officially a member of the church’s Altar Guild now.
Since then, I have grown to greatly appreciate the Church Year and how it helps us grow in our faith and live a balanced life, nurturing inward spiritual growth and encouraging outward actions of discipleship. I have come to love how the three year liturgical cycle of readings keeps the spotlight always on the gospel texts. And how we are given ample time to examine (and reexamine) specific angles of who our Lord Jesus was, is, and is to come—with each year focusing on a specific synoptic gospel narrative. I enjoy how the differing seasons oscillate between emotions and leave room for moments of mysticism and mystery. As an Altar Guilder for many years now, I enjoy the thematic colors and symbols associated with each season and holy day, and how they help us contemplate our faith more deeply. And having written about the Church Calendar in this series of blog posts over the past year, I have come to love it all even more.
Regarding church altars specifically, they tend to be viewed in one of two ways. For some, the idea of coining something as an altar at all is un-Christian. They claim that if Jesus’ death on the cross was the ultimate sacrifice—and therefore the ultimate altar—no other altar should ever be built. Many non-denominational churches refuse to use the term and instead will often call the front of the church a platform or a stage. Meanwhile, others view church altars with a reverence that makes the space almost unapproachable, places so sacred that only the truly repentant and righteous can approach. For these congregations, their obligations of faith typically revolve around worship rites and rituals, while often neglecting the “in the field” responsibilities of Christian life.
The reality is that those who practice a “high church” lifestyle could probably use a little “low church” chill from time to time, and vice versa. It is true that physical church altars are human made places and therefore unable to be perfect. Yet, these spaces are best utilized when they are consecrated to God and therefore should receive a certain amount of reverence and respect. At their best, church altars—and church sanctuaries overall—should point us towards the Divine. These places must never be worshiped, yet they should be great catalysts for our worship.
Church altars also invite us to ponder the altar within our individual hearts. What does the altar within us look like? How do we adorn the altar of our hearts? What are we sacrificing and offering up to God regularly? How do we worship God in our daily lives? Church altars can be great places to linger and ask these questions, seeking God and examining ourselves. We cannot stay there forever, however. Eventually, having communed with God and one another at the church altar, we must eventually get back to doing the work towards which we are called. We must go into the world, spreading the good news we have to share.
Relevant Reformation 