What Time Is It? A Defense of the Church Calendar

In our fast-paced world, time can feel like a blur. The weeks rush past, the seasons turn, another year is gone, and it gets hard to notice the deeper rhythms that give our days their shape. For centuries, Christians have leaned on the liturgical calendar to keep their lives pointed at the story of Jesus and the great festivals of the faith. But is this old way of keeping time still worth anything today?

Quick Summary

• The church calendar keeps us inside the Gospel story, year after year.
• Liturgical time is deeply biblical and grows out of the Old Testament festivals.
• The church year shows how the "types and shadows" of Israel find their fulfillment in Jesus.
• Keeping the same seasons can draw Christians together across traditions.
• Following the calendar is a quiet act of resistance to a purely secular sense of time.

Pastor and theologian Gregg Strawbridge makes a strong case that following the church calendar matters just as much now as it ever did. His argument is simple: liturgical time is woven right into the fabric of the Christian faith.

Christianity Is Time-Stamped

Christianity is a deeply time-stamped religion. The life of Jesus did not float free of history; it happened at real moments, "when Quirinius was governor of Syria," as Luke is careful to note. Every week we confess that Jesus suffered "under Pontius Pilate." Our story is not a timeless myth. It is flesh-and-blood, tied to actual dates and actual people.

The Old Testament Sets Up a Calendar

The Old Testament itself lays down a calendar, full of feast days and sacred seasons that all lean forward toward Jesus. Passover points to his death and resurrection. Pentecost celebrates the gift of the Spirit. By keeping an annual round of holy days, Israel slowly learned to treat time itself as sacred, a repeating pattern of remembering God and meeting with him.

Jesus Fulfills the Ancient Festivals

When Jesus comes, those ancient festivals take on a deeper meaning. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost do not pile new rules onto the conscience. Instead, they organize our Scripture readings, prayers, hymns, and sermons around the life of Christ. Marking these dates on a printable monthly calendar is one simple way to stay in step with the rhythm of the church year.

The Church Calendar Keeps Us in the Gospel

So the church calendar isn't really about ritual for its own sake. It is a way of soaking in the Gospel, season after season, until the story of Jesus stops feeling like distant history and starts feeling like something we are living inside of.

The New Testament and the Early Church

Some people push back here. Doesn't the New Testament only ask us to keep the Lord's Day? Yet even the apostle Paul planned his travels around Pentecost and other key dates. The early church quickly grew an annual cycle of Easter and Epiphany, and over the centuries the calendar stretched to cover the whole sweep of salvation.

Liturgical Time After the Resurrection

Of course, this time looks different on the other side of the resurrection. Lent is not Yom Kippur. Easter is not Passover. Just as the apostles reread the Old Testament in the light of Christ, the church calendar shows those old "types and shadows" finding their fulfillment, a transformed sense of time where everything points back to Jesus.

The Church Year as Quiet Resistance

In a restless age, the steady beat of the church year calls us toward a different way of living. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost hand us celebrations that carry real weight, and a chance for deeper unity with other Christians. Shaped by the story of Jesus, this kind of time becomes a gentle protest against the secular calendar and the constant pull of the urgent.

Jesus Is Lord of Time

So, does anybody really know what time it is? The church calendar invites us to line our days up with a bigger story, to see time through the lens of eternity, and to let the life of Christ slowly reorder what we care about. As Strawbridge puts it, Jesus is Lord of time. The calendar simply helps us live like we believe it.

Conclusion

So this year, try going deeper into the meaning behind the seasons of the Christian year. Let Advent stir up longing and hope. Enjoy the plain joy of Christmas. Sit with the mystery of Epiphany. Carry your cross through Lent. Celebrate the victory of Easter. Wonder at the Ascension and Pentecost. And through all of it, let these old rhythms do their quiet work on your heart, shaping Christ in you, the hope of glory.