This is an edited excerpt from Addendum A, “The Church Year,” On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service, written by Michael Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023), pgs. 113-120.
The Magnificat invites us to enter into, consider, and embrace the worldview of a teenaged Jewish girl and her geriatric aunt: The one bearing the prophet Elijah which was to come and the other carrying within her womb the God whom she and her nation worshipped and feared.
The church year anchors preaching in God’s historical acts of salvation guarding both the preacher and the hearers from arid rationalism and egocentric flights inward.
In episode TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO, Mike and Wade discuss Pentecost and Holy Trinity Sunday. What's the significance of these two days in the church year?
If Easter is about Jesus as the prototype of the new creation, then the Ascension is about His enthronement as the One who rules forevermore on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Whatever else may be said about the Last Day it consists of these two inseparable things: Christ’s coming and His kingdom people being gathered to Him.