Tomorrow is Pentecost.
Since the beginning of December Christians have reflected on the first and second comings of Jesus, of the humility of his life and the triumph of his death and death and resurrection.
After Pentecost the remainder of the Church year is spent in what is termed Ordinary Time.
It may seem that without the great themes of the Christian faith that this time lacks in comparison.
That, of course is not true, just as our life awaiting the fulfilment of all things is not a diminished life.
Ordinary Time celebrates the everyday blessing of Christian life – living as a reconciled and reconciling people.
The triumph theme of Ordinary Time is forgiveness.
From Jeff Hual at Mockingbird.
Forgiveness is the one word that is the heart of the matter. It is the heart of the matter in terms of our relationship with God, and with Christ, and it is the fundamental building block of our relationship with one another.
That sheds a whole new light on the church’s mission: moving into Pentecost and beyond, what’s often called “ordinary time.” The months between Easter and Christmas, this time of the ordinary, is a time for forgiveness and reconciliation. It does not celebrate a dynamic event or story in the life of Jesus, but the essential good news of God’s grace. Our life is sustained by the ordinary: water, food, and shelter; the Christian is sustained by forgiveness. What would it look like for us to live into a world of forgiveness, a world in which we who have been forgiven through Christ live into our call to forgive others in Christ’s name? How might that change our congregations, our neighborhoods, perhaps even the world as we know it?
This, friends in Christ, is the heart of the matter.Read the whole post here.
