From the Pastor: Turn Back

Dear friends,

"Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways." That’s the opening line of a hymn composed by the English writer Clifford Bax. He wrote it during the 1930’s, a time when much of the world was in crisis. The language is archaic to our ears, and the hymn has fallen out of general use, but the sentiment is still very real. Humankind doesn’t seem to get much better over time.

And of course that’s not just because humankind is mired in sin; it’s because we individual human beings are, every one of us, captive to sin. All of us need to "turn back" and "forswear our foolish ways." That is a continual message of the Bible—especially the prophets, as we are presently learning in our adult Bible study of Jeremiah on Sunday mornings!

But "turning back" is something we learn as well from following the discipline of the Christian calendar. The holy season of Lent is upon us, a season when "turning back" is a major theme. The theological word for "turning back" is "repentance"—or, as J. B. Phillips translated it, "changing your heart and mind."

It begins with Ash Wednesday—so very early this year, February 6. (Trivial digression: This year Easter is on March 23. It hasn’t been that early since 1913, and won’t be that early again until 2160, by which date I plan to be retired.) But I suppose Ash Wednesday is never really too early, and never really too late; it’s call to repentance is good and salutary most any time. We always need it.

Martin Luther began his "95 Theses" with this sentence: "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." The entire life—we are always supposed to be "turning back" to God. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble doing that. (Well, actually, I do know about you. You have trouble doing it, too.)

But that is why I call Lent a "holy season." It is our gracious Lord, giving us another wake-up call, another plea to turn back and forswear our foolish ways.

And so I encourage you to hear his tender voice in this holy season. Make it a priority to worship each Sunday, to hear Christ’s Word and share in his supper. (What are you doing that’s more important on Sunday morning?) Join us for our midweek worship opportunities—each Wednesday morning at 8:30 for Morning Prayer; each Thursday evening (starting February 14) for Evening Prayer at 7 p.m.

Find some time each day to read the Scriptures and reflect on your life. Resolve that during these 40 days, you will spend some time in prayer each day.

Take on some significant and sacrificial service during this season. Come spend time with our Hospitality House guests each Wednesday evening. Volunteer at Interfaith Food Ministry. Find a new way to give something up, some time or some material possession, to serve Christ—to "turn back" to him, not just in word or intention but in deed and in love.

Our Ash Wednesday gospel lesson comes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. I thought it would be interesting this year to reflect further on the Sermon on the Mount throughout the Lenten season, and so that will be the focus of our mid-week services. Perhaps you’d like to make that beloved Scripture passage the focus of your individual reading and reflection this year (you’ll find it in Matthew, chapters 5 through 7). We begin with Ash Wednesday, February 6, and then continue each week thereafter on Thursday evenings for our traditional soup supper and Evening Prayer. Won’t you join us? Let’s "turn back" together.

Peace to you,

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Classic Prayers

O Christ,

you take upon yourself all our burdens, so that,

freed of all that weighs us down,

we can constantly begin anew to walk,

with lightened step,

from worry towards trusting,

from the shadows towards the clear flowing waters,

from our own will towards the vision of the

coming Kingdom.

And then we know,

though we hardly dared hope so,

that you offer to make every human being

a reflection of your face. Amen.

–Roger Schutz, founder of the Taizé community

(a Protestant monastery in France)

Liturgy Notes: The Date of Easter

This year Easter is on March 23, which is just about as early as it can be. The date for Easter can actually fall on March 22, but it hasn’t been on that day since 1818. The last time it was as early as March 23 was 1913, and it won’t fall that early again until 2160. So it is safe to say that, for most of us, this Easter is the earliest in our lifetime.

How is the date of Easter figured? That’s a complicated question—and an interesting one, which has a long and contentious history in the Christian church! It is, of course, what we call a "moveable feast"—which means that, unlike Christmas, it’s date isn’t tied to the secular calendar.

So the short answer is, "Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21." But how on earth did that formula develop?

The early church, when it began to celebrate Easter (which, according to tradition, was during the lifetime of the apostles), believed it was important to tie the celebration to the date of Passover. In the Jewish calendar, that was the 14th day of Nisan.

But there was a disagreement about whether Easter should be absolutely tied to Passover, or whether it should be absolutely tied to a Sunday—the day of the week on which Christ rose. Many of the Christians in Asia Minor preferred the former practice, while other churches, including the church in Rome, preferred the connection with Sunday. As Christianity emerged as a faith distinct from Judaism, the enthusiasm for tying the date absolutely to a Jewish festival began to wane, and the Sunday connection won out.

But it didn’t win out easily; it wasn’t until the Council of Nicaea in 325 that the church agreed it was important that all Christians celebrate Easter on the same day. But even then, they didn’t settle on a day; instead they gave the Bishop of Alexandria the responsibility to calculate and set the date each year. (Alexandria was the city in the ancient world that was regarded as the center of scholarship.)

Even then, there was not unanimity. The church in various places across Europe continued to set their own dates. It wasn’t until the 9th century that virtually all of the Christian world was "on the same page."

The rule followed today is that Easter is on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox—but that’s based on the "ecclesiastical vernal equinox," which occasionally differs from the "astronomical vernal equinox." Confusing?

To make matters worse, for the last several centuries there has been a difference between the dates of Easter in the Western churches and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. That isn’t for any specifically theological reason; it is because Western Christianity adopted the Gregorian Calendar in the 16th century, while Eastern Christianity continues to use the older Julian Calendar.

So, for example, while Easter in the West is March 23 this year, our Orthodox sisters and brothers won’t be celebrating it until April 27! (Usually it is much closer; about a third of the time, we celebrate the same date.)

The "cycle" of dates actually fits a pattern, but not so as you’d notice. April 19 is the most common date for Easter—almost 4% of the time. But that’s only over the long haul. In the 250 years from 1875 to 2024, April 10 and 17 are the most frequent days. Just in case you were wondering, the cycle repeats itself after every 5,700,000 years.

There have been various attempts to "reform" the date of Easter—often by disconnecting it from the cycles of the moon and setting it, say, on the first or second Sunday of April. Don’t look for that to happen any time soon, though—maybe when we get to the end of that 5,700,000 cycle!

"Before I formed you in the womb. . ."

Our adult Bible class on Sunday morning is currently studying the book of Jeremiah. This prophet, one of the most important of the Old Testament, ministered in a time of great social chaos. He condemns those who cry "peace, when there is no peace," and he struggles with the difficulty of maintain and proclaiming his faith in a situation where he is often mocked and scorned. In spite of his often being associated with words of lamentation and despair, there is a deeper message; in Luther’s words, "Christ will be able to sustain his own, for whose sake he causes his word to shine forth in this shameful time of ours." In Jeremiah’s prophecies, we see the promise of Christ. So come and learn, each Sunday morning at 9:30 in the old Fellowship Hall.