You learn a great deal about someone from looking at their checkbook and calendar. You find out what they prioritize. Food, clothing, and other basic necessities, favorite charities, work, play, exercise, rest, diet… At the close of the secular calendar year, people are often scrambling to write checks for tax-deductible gifts. At the beginning of the new year, the same people (quite possibly you and me!) are making New Year’s resolutions that we may keep for a time, but quite likely falter on and forget. I’ve been there more than a few times.
Further to the point on New Year’s resolutions, many calendars which begin on January 1st often list key dates. In the United States, where I live, a calendar may list key events like New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Emancipation Day, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, the Day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve. According to the National Archives, you will find the following listed as “federal holidays”: New Year’s Day, Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington’s Birthday (now often referred to as Presidents’ Day), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
According to one U.S. Senate document, Inauguration Day is included in the list, making it eleven. The following statement is revealing about the selection of the holidays:
By law, Congress has established 11 permanent federal holidays. Although frequently called “national holidays,” these patriotic celebrations are only applicable to federal employees and the District of Columbia, the states individually decide their own legal holidays.
Congress, in several instances, created federal holidays after a sizable number of states had taken such action. In others, Congress took the lead. Each action emphasizes particular aspects of the American heritage that molded the United States as a people and a nation.
Whether U.S. citizens think seriously about the selection of holidays or not, or simply look at them as possible occasions to relax, Congress’s intent in selecting these dates was to emphasize dimensions of the country’s heritage that has “molded” Americans as a people.
The selection process can be quite painstaking, as the document suggests. For example, the recognition of Dr. King’s birthday as a federal public holiday was the result of a fifteen-year process. The aim was to highlight his contribution to the Civil Rights movement (Refer here to how arduous the struggle was to mark the occasion as a federal holiday).
You learn a great deal about what is important to American society based on what is recognized as a federal public holiday. As with national monuments, the federal calendar reflects the nation’s liturgy. Christmas Day is the only occasion that intersects the Christian calendar. However, it should be noted that in the first two centuries of the Christian movement, the church did not prioritize Jesus’ birth (Refer here). Moreover, it is worth highlighting that Christmas Day also has significance for Pagans and secular people alike, albeit for different reasons.
Key to a nation or religion’s liturgy is sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom. Thus, holidays like Veterans Day and Memorial Day loom large. So, too, does the birth of a people, as symbolized by the Fourth of July. While not officially constituted as a federal public holiday, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are intended to recognize the major contributions that parents make in the formation of the populace (besides making for great marketing and merchandizing opportunities).
The church calendar does not officially recognize Mother’s Day, but does recognize Mother Mary in light of her holy obedience and virtue as theotokos. The church does not officially recognize Father’s Day, nor the federal holiday recognizing the founding father of this nation—Washington’s Birthday. However, the church does recognize Jesus—who is the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)—as the founder of the church, which is a holy nation (See 1 Peter 2:9).
While many in our society would like to privatize religion and the church, the church and religion are no private matters. America has always operated as a church and manifests civil religion, though it has evolved considerably since the nation’s birth. As G.K. Chesterton remarked, America has the soul of a church and was founded on a creed (Refer here for a discussion of the context of his claims).
My main concern in drawing attention to the privatizing of religion and the church is not to push for a Christian theocracy. Rather, my aim is to highlight the respective liturgies of the church and state. Just like the U.S., so the church goes through an arduous process of recognizing certain days as constitutive for molding its populace. While there is no unanimity between East and West (or in the West itself) on a universal Christian calendar, various church traditions mark key days of the Christian year.
The Christian year does not begin on January 1st or the Fourth of July, but on the first Sunday of Advent. While many mark the new year according to the secular calendar, we who are Christians should be sure to mark our calendars to reflect the Christian story. Stories shape our lives. Just as the children entered a new world of Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so we must enter the world of the Bible and events that mark the seasons of our Christian life year in and year out. Otherwise, other stories, no matter how great and lofty as those of nations, will eclipse our own.
Even Jesus honored his Jewish heritage and its various feasts and festivals, as did his parents. Shouldn’t we do the same, as long as the Christian dates and events that churches cherish reflect the biblical story? Certainly, we are not to allow others to judge us spiritually based on observing special days. But we are to put ourselves under the judgment of Christ to whom the substance of spirituality belongs. As Paul wrote to the church in Colossae, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17; ESV). I would hate to see us allow other calendars, such as that of a great nation, cast their shadows on Jesus and his church’s life. Jesus and his church must alone mark the seasons of the church calendar year.
As I stated at the outset of this piece, you learn a lot about someone by looking at their calendar. What might others learn about us if they were to look at ours?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In