Marking the Time

 Much of our spiritual formation is accomplished through sacred rhythms and practices, like the spiritual disciplines, faithfully worked out in our lives. The spiritual disciplines are a vital means by which God spiritually forms us, so as a part of our People of the Deep series, we want to give a simple, practical next step to make them a part of your life.

The modern world in which we live is what Charles Taylor has called, “a disenchanted world.” A disenchanted world has been drained of the supernatural and the transcendent. What you see is what you get. and anything smelling of the supernatural or mysterious is viewed with skepticism and suspicion.

And yet, the Bible talks about both realities and possibilities of what one may describe as an enchanted life, where supernatural and personal experiences with God are understood to be normal and desired. So how do we make sense of what we read about in the Scripture? How do we re-enchant our world so to speak? How do we experience things differently?

The answer is that we need to reorient our lives around the story of Scripture. Think about it — if a disenchanted story got us to the place where an experience with God and the supernatural are viewed with suspicion, wouldn’t it make sense that an enchanted story would get us to the place where an experience with God and the supernatural are viewed as normative?

Makes sense on paper at least.

The people of God have always been storytellers and if we want to break free of our disenchantment, we must find ways to immerse ourselves in this story. A simple way to do this is by what Mike Cosper has called “marking time.” When we mark the time, we are orienting our lives around spiritual practices and significant seasons that call us to remember that we are really living in a different world than the disenchanted one with which we are presented.

Marking the Years

In a given year, there are at least two significant seasons that call Christians back to the story of Scripture: Christmas and Easter. Within the church calendar there are more when Epiphany, Lent and Ordinary Time are considered, however these two holidays serve as anchors in our calendar.

When you think about it, they are actually quite similar in their structure. In both seasons, there is a pattern of anxious anticipation for God to act followed by celebration when He indeed does. This is because these seasons are designed to re-orient our lives around the fact that our lives are made up of millions of moments of faithful dependence in and joyous celebration of God.

Like we observe as a church family each year, Christmas is preceded by a time of anticipation called Advent. Advent is about remembering the longing of Israel and the world for a Savior. The giving of gifts, lights, and all elements of the season is meant to be a celebration of the generosity and mercy of God who gave to the world the greatest of gifts, His Son.

Similarly, Easter is preceded by a season of anticipation called Lent. In Lent, the church historically participates in a forty-day fast of repentance and lament in order to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday. The value in marking these seasons as sacred is that in observing them, we mark our own lives with the two most significant moments in the life of Jesus.

Weekly

Probably the most significant way that a believer marks the time is by gathering weekly with their church family. This is significant because it is a time when the invisible is made visible — the scattered church gathers and the signs of the Kingdom are present in the Lord’s Supper and in the waters of baptism.

Of course it often doesn’t feel like a foreshadow of the Kingdom and attending can be difficult. It can be hard getting your family organized and out the door. It can also be distracting to sit next to the person with the loud perfume and frustrating when there is new music with which you are not familiar. After all, as Wormwood’s affectionate Uncle Screwtape reminds him, distraction at church is easy. Anyone who “sings out of tune, or has boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, we will quite easily believe that our religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous!”

And yet, Hebrews 10:25 tells us that gathering with the church is necessary and commanded. Not to mention, Jesus dwells with His people in a unique and rich way when we gather and sing together.

This is why we unite with other believers weekly. We look around and remember that we are not alone. And in our disenchanted world, that is more important now than ever.

Daily

Daily spiritual disciplines include what we are exploring in this series as well as others like journaling, memorization, and theological reading. What’s important is to begin thinking in terms of daily habits. Consider how you are marking time on a day-to-day basis so that you are regularly rooting yourself in the reality of an enchanted world.

So how do we go about our days in a way that sustains an awareness that we are citizens of another world, living in a different story? In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, the apostle Paul talks about “praying without ceasing.” In the 17th century, Brother Lawrence wrote about “practicing the presence of God”, which was an effort to fill his mind constantly with the knowledge of God’s presence.

Though these goals seem lofty, filling our days with spiritual disciplines that call us back to the story of Scripture is a practical way of re-enchanting our world and our experiences. This is because they remind us that a supernatural and personal experience with God should be both normative and desired. They also remind us however that the world we live in is far more mysterious than we have been told in our modern, disenchanted world.