{"id":21520,"date":"2016-11-29T01:26:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T05:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=21520"},"modified":"2016-11-28T21:29:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T01:29:28","slug":"happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve written a couple of posts this month about the Christian relationship to time,\u00a0and how the ways that we steward that dimension of God\u2019s Creation<\/a> can be quite formative. One of the most subtly powerful ways that we do this is by following the liturgical calendar. As\u00a0philosopher Jamie Smith explains:<\/p>\n

\"Smith,<\/a>If we read the practices of Christian worship, we would conclude that Christians are a people whose year doesn\u2019t simply map onto the calendar of the dominant culture\u2026 the distinct marking of time that is integral to historic Christian worship establishes a sense that the church is a \u201cpeculiar people,\u201d and the liturgical calendar already constitutes a formative matrix that functions as\u00a0counter<\/em>-formation to the incessant 24\/7-ness of our frenetic commercial culture. (Desiring the Kingdom<\/em>,\u00a0pp. 156-57)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that we ignore the secular calendar that declares today to be November 29, 2016. But attending to two calendars reminds us that\u00a0we live as alien citizens. Smith\u2019s reference to Christians as a \u201cpeculiar people\u201d borrows\u00a0from the King James translation of 1 Peter 2:9,\u00a0whose author goes on<\/a> to describe us as \u201cstrangers and pilgrims.\u201d So a practice like observing the\u00a0liturgical calendar helps us to\u00a0remember (as Augustine put it in\u00a0City of God<\/em><\/a>) to live as\u00a0citizens of a\u00a0\u201cmost glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this world, and seeks the heavenly country.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0here\u2019s how Smith\u00a0understands the \u201ccounter-formative\u201d function of the season that began this past Sunday:<\/p>\n

\u2026as the commercialization of Christmas has the \u201cseason\u201d of consumption creeping from Thanksgiving all the way back to Halloween, the Christian observation of Advent marks a different orientation to time, particularly when it is recognized that Advent is a\u00a0penitential\u00a0<\/em>season of denial and self-examination rather than of accumulation, consumption, and self-indulgence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This year I\u2019m especially cognizant of one other\u00a0blessing of Advent: that while we\u2019ll have to wait to\u00a0see what entries December adds to the already terrible chronicle of\u00a02016, Christians\u00a0don\u2019t need to wait to celebrate New Year\u2019s.\u00a0At least in Western churches, the liturgical year reset\u00a0on Sunday. (Our Eastern Orthodox brethren begin their church year<\/a> on September 1st.)<\/p>\n

And this New Year is quite different from the Christmas-curtailing, hangover-nursing, football-saturated\u00a0version that takes place\u00a0on January 1st.<\/p>\n

First, while that\u00a0New Year\u2019s Day trains us to think of our relationship to the past in terms of \u201cturning the page\u201d or \u201ccleaning the slate<\/a>,\u201d Advent\u00a0cultivates a more complicated understanding of\u00a0the passage of time. On the one hand, it\u2019s a remembrance of Incarnation, a reminder that God took flesh and dwelt among us not only in a particular place but at a particular time. (\u201cIn the days of<\/a>\u201d a local ruler, reports Luke, using the calendrical conventions of his time \u2014 just before he subverts them by having\u00a0Mary sing about God bringing \u201cthe powerful down from their thrones.\u201d) And all that in fulfillment of\u00a0promises that take us still further back into the past. (Both Mary<\/a> and Zechariah<\/a> name Abraham in their famous canticles.)<\/p>\n

But Advent is about second coming, too. It, says Smith, \u201cshakes us out of the presentist complacency that we can be lulled into. Instead, we are called and formed to be a people of\u00a0expectancy<\/em>\u2014looking for the coming (again) of the Messiah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"El<\/a>
El Greco, \u201cThe Annunciation\u201d (ca. 1600) \u2013 Public domain\/Google Cultural Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Secular New Year\u2019s orients us toward the future, as we resolve to\u00a0live differently in the days and months to come. But it\u2019s a sign of how unseriously we take these resolutions that\u00a0custom has never assigned a later holiday in that calendar as the check-in for those\u00a0goals. Resolutions point to a future without\u00a0expectation.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0Advent marks the new year as a time to respond like Mary did to the angel Gabriel: \u201cHere am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word\u201d (Lk 1:38). With this\u00a0pledge of release, not resolve, Mary revels in\u00a0God\u2019s grace rather than boasting of her own strength. This new liturgical year, may you do the same.<\/p>\n

(Incidentally, before January 1st\u00a0took on that meaning in the mid-18th century, English-speakers like the colonists in Massachusetts<\/a>\u00a0marked March 25th \u2014 the Feast of the Annunciation \u2014 as New Year\u2019s. Of course, for\u00a0an agrarian economy in the northern hemisphere, it also made legal and economic sense to start\u00a0contracts around the time of spring planting, rather than in the dead of winter.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While 2016 has one more month, the Christian calendar has already entered its new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2794,"featured_media":21528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2974],"tags":[489,910,3209,1364,3208,389,414],"class_list":["post-21520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chris-gehrz","tag-advent","tag-augustine","tag-calendars","tag-gospel-of-luke","tag-james-k-a-smith","tag-liturgy","tag-virgin-mary"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy New Year!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While 2016 has one more month, the Christian calendar has already entered its new year.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy New Year!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While 2016 has one more month, the Christian calendar has already entered its new year.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Anxious Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-29T05:26:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-29T01:29:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2016\/11\/El-Grecos-Annunciation.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"565\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Gehrz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Gehrz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/\",\"name\":\"Happy New Year!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-11-29T05:26:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-11-29T01:29:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/29732884f57a8ac84c31787a7f7a2168\"},\"description\":\"While 2016 has one more month, the Christian calendar has already entered its new year.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/11\/happy-new-year\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Happy New Year!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/\",\"name\":\"Anxious Bench\",\"description\":\"The Relevance of Religious History for Today\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/29732884f57a8ac84c31787a7f7a2168\",\"name\":\"Chris Gehrz\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b0ea20f4111076e72b3a2a0beeccbf31?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b0ea20f4111076e72b3a2a0beeccbf31?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chris Gehrz\"},\"description\":\"My name\u2019s Chris Gehrz. 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