HOLY IS THIS TIME--#4

Some Christians celebrate the Sabbath. Seventh Day Adventists and a few other communities come to mind. Most Christian communities celebrate Sunday as the great festival day. As the churches of the Mediterranean world developed their worship calendars, two feasts stood out. Sunday the great festival day, and the Paschal feast. The latter included Good Friday and the Easter Vigil. Later on the Paschal feast expanded and other liturgical seasons and saint's days developed. The original feast in Christianity was and is Sunday.

Sunday is the day when the Son of God, the One who fashioned the sun and the moon, rose from the dead. Sunday is the first day of the week. On the first day the risen Lord appeared to Mary Magdalen in the garden. He also appeared to the assembly gathered in the upper room on Pentecost. Sunday is the first day, the beginning of a new creation, the day when the church celebrates its fundamental creed: He is risen! Because he is risen, we are newborn, alive in the Spirit, constituted as a holy people, a community of brothers and sisters in the Lord. Because he is risen, we have hope. Our hope is in the One who conquered death, who was raised up by the Spirit, and who is among us in our gatherings through the power of his Spirit. Sunday is resurrection day, an alleluia day, a day to rejoice in the Christ and in one another. Since Sunday is the beginning of a new creation, the church spends time in leisurely hearing the Word of God, in baptizing the newborn, and in bringing all the baptized to the banquet table. Sunday is a day to rejoice in. That is why we shed our ordinary clothing and put on garments of gladness, festivity, and joy.

Sunday is also the eighth day, the day that all creation has been groaning for and waiting for. The number seven, as the ancients understood it, brought Christians to the edge of perfection, eight. The eighth day is a time of completion and fulfillment. Christ has completed the work of redemption. We await his return in this in-between time. We wait for the last day, the final time when God will reconcile all creation, a time when all the earth will be covered with harmony and peace. Thus Sunday is the eighth day, when Christians look forward in hope. Thus the future, the end time when God will reconcile all creation, a time when all the earth will be covered with harmony and peace. Thus Sunday is the eighth day, the time when Christians look forward in hope. Thus the future, the end time is not a time of cruel harshness and condemning judgment before a stern God. It is a time of gathering in the harvest. Sunday, the eighth day, in a tuning fork teaching humankind the right pitch for successful living. It is the time when all creation learns its purpose and unpacks its mystery. It is the day when humankind learns how to sing the melody of God in the world.

When Sunday is a day of liturgical prayer, relaxation, sacred study, fun and fellowship, it is a taste of what the future will be. It gives us clues about heaven and the destiny that is ours in Christ. Sunday, then, is not so much a time to fulfill our obligations, but a time to fulfill our vocation as ambassadors of God in our world, heralds of Christ's (and our) victory over suffering and death. Sunday models God's dream of harmony and peace, the original and final blessing for the world.