Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. —Hebrews 13:8

The liturgical year is not memory, but encounter. It draws us into Christ’s living presence through sacred time. —D.

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When you want to know Christ not as theory but as breath in the air and weight in the room, step into the liturgical year as you would enter a forest. This is not nostalgia or pageant. It is presence. The rhythm of the Church, shaped by Scripture and kept through centuries of faithful hands, is not a recalling of what once was. It is the ground where Christ still walks. In the liturgy, He becomes near. Born. Crucified. Risen. Given. This is not performance. It is participation in the life of God.

Each season shapes us. Advent longs. Christmas welcomes. Lent empties. Holy Week descends. Easter bursts. Pentecost breathes. These are not decorations on a calendar but the marrow of redemption. They train the body to kneel and the soul to listen. The creak of wood beneath you, the warmth of bread in your hand, the flicker of light on stone. These are not ornaments. They are signs that time itself has become sacred, that Christ is among us now.

The liturgical year is not a strategy. It is an inheritance. A way of being carried through time by the Church, not toward an idea, but into communion. As the year turns again, you find yourself changed. Not by your strength, but by His presence. Not through study, but through surrender. The Gospel does not ask you to master it. It asks you to walk it. Step by step, season by season, Christ makes Himself known.

 

*** By liturgy, I mean the sacred rhythm of worship through which Christ makes Himself present, shaping us by His life, death, and resurrection in real time.

By Donavon Riley

Donavon Riley is a Lutheran pastor, conference speaker, author, and contributing writer for 1517 and The Jagged Word. He is also a co-host of the Banned Books and Warrior Priest podcasts. He is the author of the books, "Crucifying Religion,” “The Withertongue Emails,” and, “The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction.”

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