In Honor of
those who have Influenced Me:
Rev. John
Boonzaaijer
Father John Boonzaaijer is the
rector of Chapel of the Cross Reformed Episcopal Church in Dallas, Texas. I have known Father Boonzaaijer for more than
twenty years. He was my pastor for a
number of years and as a close friend I have always been in admiration of his
ability to squeeze the most out of a day’s hours so as to be a priest and
servant-leader in the church, a husband to his wife, a father to his children,
a neighbor to his neighbors, and to lift all these things up to God. I was greatly blessed a couple of years ago
to hear him speak to my church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma on how the church
calendar used in the Anglican Book of Prayer reflects a view of time that
shaped the early Church calendar. Father
Boonzaaijer shows us how the ancient Church calendar reflects a history of
God’s appointing of seasons and times from the beginning of creation that is
reflected in the Christian calendar. I
believe his work will be edifying to everyone who uses the Christian calendar,
and will help believers from other traditions to at least understand if not
consider the values of a church calendar.
It is my privilege to present to you Father Boonzaaijer’s article on
“Sanctifying Time.”
SANCTIFYING TIME
We may cherish a “holy minute,”
but will the minute make us holy? God not only sanctifies time, He uses
time to sanctify the Church—and the Christian. The Book of Common Prayer orders life and
worship by refracting the life of Christ onto the Church’s daily, weekly, annual, and lifetime calendars.
At the Creation of the world, God placed the lights in the sky—some
to rule the day, and some to rule the night. But they are placed in the sky for
a greater reason: for “signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years” (Genesis 1:14). They divide the day
from the night and lighten the earth during both. But what else are they for?
The Book of Numbers explains. God is teaching Israel a “Grammar
of Worship” by using time. Taking Israel out of
Egypt, God first stops at Mt. Sinai and spends two years to teach the newly
redeemed how He wishes to be worshiped. In addition to the moral code of the
Ten Commandments Israel becomes schooled into the protocol of approach that God
wishes them to use. How, When, Where, and Why are they to come into His
presence? Sincerity is not enough.
Numbers 28 instructs Israel to use the lights of the sky for
worship. When should a godly Israelite pray? As the sun comes up and and as it
goes down, a lamb is offered, along with the morning and evening prayer. On the
seventh day, the sacrifice is doubled. At the first sliver of the new moon,
other sacrifices are offered.
After arranging daily, weekly, and monthly worship with the sun’s rising and setting, and the moon’s waxing and waning, God uses the stars
to arrange an annual calendar. Three Spring feasts and three Fall feasts move
Israel semi-annually through cycles of repentance, redemption, and rejoicing.
In the Spring, Passover on the full moon of Nisan (repentance) is followed by
the Feast of the First Fruits (redemption), and then the Feast of Weeks
(rejoicing). In the Fall, the Feast of Trumpets (repentance) culminates the
agricultural season, which is followed by the Day of Atonement (redemption),
and the Feast of Tabernacles (rejoicing).
Thus, by God’s design, the
celestial creation provides the calendrical mechanics for proper worship. God
not only sanctifies time, He uses time to sanctify His people, newly redeemed
from slavery in Egypt. The prescribed worship calendar derives order from God’s signs in the sky, and is arranged
around agriculture. The Creator of heaven and earth, not the pagan fertility
gods, rules all the world: earth, sea, and sky.
What do Jesus and the early Church do with this revelation? Jesus
lives under the Law, is shaped by the calendar’s
spiritual direction, and completely fulfills the Old Covenant. But destroy them
He does not! Moreover, since Jesus promised the eleven that He would be with
the Church to the end of the age, and that He would send His Holy Spirit to
them to lead them into all truth, the Church does well carefully to observe the
calendars developing in the early centuries of Church History. A study of
history reveals the Apostles leading the Church to use God’s order of time from the Hebrew calendar as they
themselves were led into all truth by the Holy Spirit of Jesus.
Could any forget the Passover, now marked by crucifixion and
resurrection? Jesus ascending into heaven? The Gospels keep the life of Jesus
at the center of the Church’s worship, and
the epistles build all doctrine upon the same. Readers of the New Testament are
expected to know that when “the trumpet shall sound,”
the last harvest has begun, and the year is now fully “the
year of our Lord.” As it took several centuries for God
to gift Israel with the Psalms for their daily prayers, so it required several
centuries for the Holy Spirit to develop the Church’s annual worship around the life of Christ. But
the beginnings are immediate: the Passover is henceforth, and forever, about
the Lamb of God.
As a prism refracts one beam of sunshine into the full and
glorious spectrum of the rainbow, so the Church quickly began to refract the
life of Christ into its annual worship and prayers. Repentance, redemption, and
rejoicing were still ordered with days, weeks, seasons, and years, but now
circling the life of Christ rather than agriculture. The shape of the Christian
calendar continues the Hebrew ellipse with two foci, now Christmas and Easter
(incarnation and atonement).
Maintaining these ancient and biblical foundations, the Book of
Common Prayer weaves them together into one book for the individuals, families,
and parishes of the Church. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany focus spiritual life
through the liturgy of the incarnation of the Word made flesh. The Creator God
and the Redeemer God are one and the same! Salvation is brought to this world,
and is not removed from this world. Creation will be saved.
Next, as Mother, the Church takes her children through (pre)
Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, again in the order of
repentance, redemption, and rejoicing. In Christ, God conquers sin, Satan,
evil, and wickedness by way of the cross. The Church prays with Jesus on His
way to Jerusalem, weeps and wonders atop Golgotha, believes at the tomb, and
bows before His exalted throne at the right hand of the Father, going on to “walk
in the Spirit” and “disciple all
nations.”
During the octave of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, the calendar
proceeds to ruminate on what this all means, applying the completed work of
Christ to the faithful believer, that he may also “thither ascend”
(Ascension Day). The Roman Church counts her remaining Sundays from
Pentecost, but Episcopalians (until recently) and Anglicans, have always
counted their remaining weeks of the year from Trinity, following the ancient
British custom. One advantage of this tradition is further protection from
Modalism: Christian pilgrimage is not simply life in the Spirit; rather, life
in the Spirit is union with one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (And it is
interesting that “fresh words from the Spirit”
tend to come from those who now count their Sundays from Pentecost.)
This calendar is an unspeakable gift for Christian discipleship,
teaching repentance, redemption, and rejoicing through annual prayer around the
life of Christ. But much remains. Sins entangle our confused souls, hearts are
divided, lives are broken, and hopes torn.
Trinitytide begins and ends in heaven. Families must be rebuilt,
vocations clarified, chastity cherished, and sins mortified. The seven deadly
sins or passions of the soul are indeed deadly!
Again the Trinitytide calendar orders the Christian soul by cycling through
the traditional disorders and passions of the soul, in the order of Purgation,
Illumination, and Union with God. The sins of the mind (Pride and Vainglory),
the heart (Despair, Sloth, and Wrath), and the appetites (Lust and
Covetousness), are brought to the throne of grace in heaven through the kindly
order of Trinitytide Sunday Propers.
Around the life of Christ, the Church is sanctified through God’s ordering of her time: a daily
calendar, a weekly calendar, and an annual calendar. It is no mere coincidence
that the Prayer Book begins Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, continuing to
weekly Sundays, arranged by the Propers for Holy Communion, from year to year.
Following the daily, weekly, and annual calendars a final calendar appears:
Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Childbirth, Sickness, and Burial.
Such is the Hebrew year, given to the Church in her early
centuries. Do not think of the Christian Year as a new idea; it is the pattern
God first gave to Israel, teaching her how to worship Him according to His
will, fulfilled by Christ, and cherished by the Church. Loathe to abandon such
revelation given her in the Old Testament, the Church transposed this calendar
through the finished work of the King of Glory.
Without a calendar ordering my disordered soul, am I missing out
on God’s way to bring His Son to His redeemed
people? Could that include my sanctification? What better orders my soul: a
cherished book with the complete calendar, or a pamphlet for one slice only,
thrown away after service? Could this also be true for my curious pagan
neighbor?
Written by Rev. John P.
Boonzaaijer; Rector of Chapel of the Cross Reformed Episcopal Church, Dallas, Texas.
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