"In this podcast we explore together how Christ can be revealed to us through the cyclical life of the church calendar year. How this calendar once structured culture and how it can again. We’ll also explore practical ways to observe and celebrate these holy days in our quest to glorify God and live the good life in all He has given us."
Song: Savior of the Nations Come
Text: Isaiah 2: 1-5
Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Anno Domini Podcast. A podcast dedicated to the supremacy of Christ over all things including our days, weeks, and months.
In this podcast we explore together how Christ can be revealed to us through the cyclical life of the church calendar year. How this calendar once structured culture and how it can again. We’ll also explore practical ways to observe and celebrate these holy days in our quest to glorify God and live the good life in all He has given us.
Now since this is episode one I’d like to lay some ground work for what to expect. I’d like to explore over the next year how God fearing, Christ following, Spirit filled, Christians can benefit from following the Church Calendar year. Personally, I come from a protestant, reformed, evangelical background and have very little experience with the Church Calendar outside of Christmas and Easter. This is a journey on which I embark with little more than a passion to learn and report back what I’ve found.
Now for a quick disclaimer that will likely be standard to every episode. The only “holy day” or holiday that I believe Christians are held to keeping is the weekly sabbath. No, I’m not referring to the old testament jewish sabbath but the new covenant Sunday sabbath, the day of the Lord, or Lord’s day. From the creation of the world, we’ve been resting once per week. It’s the fourth commandment and the only holiday or day set apart that I believe Christians are covenantally required to keep and what a blessing this Sabbath is to us. All the other days we will examine and celebrate are simply experiential ways of worshiping God with our whole being. We close our eyes, bow our heads, and kneel to pray not because there is a bible verse requiring us to do so but because we worship with our heart, soul, body, and mind. Following the liturgical calendar is a similar experience. While not commanded, it can be simply another way we can submit to the glory and the supremacy of Christ in all things by celebration. And as Christians living in the year of our Lord 2019, we have every reason to celebrate.
With the disclaimer out of the way let’s get started.
We will generally follow four segments per show. The first will be an introduction to the holiday with some biblical references in support of the celebratory focus. Secondly, we will look at the historic ways this holiday has been celebrated and how it shaped culture. Thirdly we will examine a few practical suggestions for how you and your family might celebrate the day. The last segment will likely be the longest as we will be examining an ancient or not so ancient hymn that is based on or connected to the theme of the holiday.
I’ll try and get these episodes out two or three days in advance of the holiday so that you can have time to prepare for the day if you want to.
Let’s get started.
This week’s episode is all about Advent. On December 1st, Anno Domini 2019 the Church militant will celebrate the 1st Sunday of Advent.
A couple of definitions to help. Anno Domini is the latin phrase for “in the year of our Lord.” We often simply use the abbreviation AD. This is the year 2019 AD. The entire calendar system of the world is based off the resurrection of Christ. This is one of the many ways in which Christ is saving the whole world and bringing all nations and principalities under his rule.
The church militant according to Noah Webster is “the christian church on earth, which is supposed to be engaged in a constant warfare against its enemies; thus distinguished from the church triumphant, or in heaven.” Therefore the church militant refers to any and all trinitarian followers of God who trust the Father, obey the Son, and are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Advent is the four sabbaths leading up to Christmas and marks the beginning of the Christian new year. We might be tempted to think of Advent and Christmas as the finale of the year because it comes so close to January 1st but really it is the beginning of the year as it relates to the Church calendar.
Biblical
The theme of Advent always surrounds the coming of the Lord. It could be the coming of the Lord as the Christ child, the coming of the Lord in judgement, or even the coming of the Lord in triumph into Jerusalem the week before he was sacrificed. The theme can also referring to the nations coming unto the Lord in the culmination of the victory of the gospel here on earth as is predicted in Isaiah 2:1-5 which reads:
It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord."
This incredible prophecy speaks of a day when the kingdom of God will come on earth as it is in heaven. Where nations will no longer know war or have any need for weapons of war. The gospel will be so triumphant that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. This is only possible due to the coming of the Christ child as a newborn babe in Bethlehem. A light coming into a world of darkness and scattering forever the power of that darkness.
Historical
Historically this season has been celebrated during the winter months because Christmas and the winter solstice are almost identical. Therefore Advent celebrates the Light coming down into the world at the very time (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere) when the world is at its darkest. Then with the coming of Christmas, the birth of Christ, the days gradually begin to lengthen and grow lighter. A picture of the gospel in the world, light overcoming the darkness. Therefore in the ancient church, Advent became known as the season of light and often candles were of primary significance even as they are today.
Practical
I am most familiar personally with Advent and have celebrated it fairly extensively with my family in previous years. We usually try and celebrate every day of the Advent season from Dec. 1st all the way through Dec. 25th. Every day during the week we will gather around the dining room table and turn off all the lights. I’ve usually prepared some kind of the candle holder that will hold the appropriate number of candles for every day of the next 4 weeks. We add a candle every night and read scripture, sing songs, and pray. We have been immensely blessed by the devotional I will be attaching in the show notes. It is a .pdf file that contains readings and devotions for every day of Advent, the 12 days of Christmas, and all the way through Epiphany. Each sabbath during the Advent celebration, we give gifts to our children, celebrate with chocolate and wine, and have a glorious feast. I will give more details in the future but I will leave it here that my wife and I and especially our 7 children absolutely love this time of year.
Musical
The ancient hymn we will be examining today is called “Savior of the Nations Come.” Now when I say ancient, I don’t mean old fashioned. I mean ancient. This hymn was written by St. Ambrose in 397 AD. Fun fact about St. Ambrose: God used him to convert St. Augustine to Christianity. This song, originally written in Latin, was translated to German by Martin Luther in 1524, and then translated into English by William Reynolds in 1860. I’ve recorded my own version of this hymn using a different tune. Let’s look at the words briefly
1 Savior of the nations, come,
virgin's Son, make here thy home!
Marvel now, O heav'n and earth,
that the Lord chose such a birth.
2 Not by human flesh and blood,
by the Spirit of our God;
was the word of God made flesh,
Womans offspring pure and fresh.
3 Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child
of the Virgin undefiled!
Though by all the world disowned,
still to be in heav'n enthroned.
4 From the Father forth he came
and returneth to the same,
captive leading death and hell,
high the song of triumph swell!
5 Thou the Father's only Son,
hast o'er sin the vict'ry won.
Boundless shall thy kingdom be;
when shall we its glories see?
6 Praise to God the Father sing.
Praise to God the Son, our King.
Praise to God the Spirit be
ever and eternally.
This hymn is simply wonderful. Verse 1 begins with an earnest cry for God to come and make His home on earth all while understanding the fact that to take on the frailty and weakness of human flesh was an amazing thing for God to do.
Verse two describes how the Word of God was made flesh not by man but by the Spirit of our God in an undefiled virgin named Mary. The seed of the woman who would soon crush the head of the Serpent. This verse and the beginning of verse 3 also speaks to the fact that original sin is passed from father’s to their children. Mary was not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, she was a sinner like the rest of us. She was however a virgin undefiled by any man. She was a virgin who trusted God and who by the power of God conceived a Child who had no original sin. Verse 3 goes on to say that he would be rejected or disowned by everyone but would soon be enthroned at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
Verse 4 is a victorious verse. Christ has come from the Father in humility, laying down his claim taking on the frailty of human flesh but He returns in victory following his glorious resurrection and ascension. The key example of the promise that if we “humble ourselves before God he will lift us up.” As he returns to the Father he parades his captives on display. Who are the captives the Son of Glory has conquered? Death and hell. Because of this, the song of triumph swells around Him.
Verse 5 focuses on the diety of Christ and how he has conqured sin as well as death and hell, consequences of the fall. This new Adam which means “son of God” is victorious as the first Adam failed to be. He overcame the power of the evil one and in so doing, delivered the human race from the prince of the power of the air. Because of this victory, his kingdom has no end and the verse concludes with the question, when shall we see it in its glorious fulfillment. This was a question St. Ambrose had 1700 years ago and is a question we’ll likely still be asking 1700 years from now as the gospel continues to cover the earth and we see the ups and downs of the coming of the kingdom of God.
The hymn concludes as all good hymns ought with a proclamation of the glory of the trinity. This pattern is often repeated in ancient hymns and is a wonderful reminder that our God is infinitely complex, mysterious, and deep. He is one God but is also three persons. How can we explain this? We can’t. But I don’t want to serve a God I can completely understand as though he was a math sum. Praise to God the Father, and the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Amen.
And with that I am going to close out this podcast by playing a new version of the Ancient Hymn Savior of the Nations Come. This is going to be track 1 on the upcoming Album simply called “Advent” which will be hopefully going live in the next few days. I hope everyone has a blessed first Sunday of Advent and I will see you all next week.
