For those of us using the one-year lectionary, this coming Sunday will be observed as Transfiguration (one of the Lutheran changes to the historic calendar - moving it from August 6, though many still observe it upon that day - see Hammer of God). After Transfiguration the little season of pre-Lent begins. Here I always think of the unfortunate Bilbo Baggins being hurried out of his hobbit hole by Gandalf with not even time to pack an extra kerchief. We're far more comfortable heading off on a journey when we have time to think about where we're going, how we'll get there, and what we'll need for the journey.
Lent itself is the journey to the Paschal Mystery: to our Lord's lifting up through Cross, Descent into Hell, and Resurrection from the dead. It is a journey to the new life into which Baptism placed us, and which our own lives continually betray and ignore. Lent, then, is not an exercise in disciplines needed only for six odd weeks of our earthly pilgrimage each year. What a waste that would be! Lent is rather the boot-camp wherein we practice toward that life which will be ours fully and finally on the Day of the Resurrection of all flesh.
But if Lent is such a journey, then pre-Lent is the preparation for such a journey each year. How may one prepare for this journey? The Gospel readings point the way: by grace alone (Septuagesima's Gospel: no credit to us - working in the vineyard is a gift); by the Word alone (Sexagesima's Gospel: the operative power for the new life comes from God's own Words to us, not our ascetical efforts); by faith alone (Quinquagesima's Gospel: which is the joy of companionship with Jesus as with eyes now wide open and healed we follow Him up to Jerusalem). Pre-Lent, in other words, strips from us the illusion of "He does His part and we do ours" and shows us our total dependance upon our Lord; this change we seek is wrought freely by His grace at work through the power of His Word as He strengthens our faith to walk with Him through our own Calvarys and out of our tombs. If I may put it so, with Pre-Lent the Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism are cleansed out of Lent for us, and we can approach the Day of Ashes totally dependent upon our Lord. As we pray on each of the Sunday's of this little season:
may we mercifully be delivered by YOUR goodness (Sept.)...by YOUR power may we be defended against all adversity (Sex.)...having set us free from the bonds of our sins, deliver us from every evil (Quin.)!
Do we know when, and where, Transfiguration began to be observed in Lutheranism, in the one year lectionary?
ReplyDeleteI'm having a dickens of a time finding it anywhere in the time of Luther and beyond, for example, in Bach's Leipzig, etc.
Apparently it was unknown as well in Johann Gerhard's time as well, since there are no sermons in his postils on it.
We are trying to unravel the mystery over at Historic Lectionary.org
Care to shed any light?
Reed gives you the data (but as his frustrating way, not the actual sources), I believe. See page 485,6. He attributes the move to Bugenhagen and Veit Dietrich for sixth epiphany. Common Service appointed it for the LAST of epiphany each year, save when there is but one Sunday following epiphany. The Magdeburg Book (Cantica Sacra) provides it as the sixth Sunday Sunday after Epiphany (1613). The propers though are entirely different other than the Gospel (which is transfiguration). Introit runs: Let my prayer be set before you, incline your ear to my plea, O Lord. O Lord God of my salvation, day and night I cry to you. The collect is the one that asks that we might so use the things temporal that we lose not the things eternal. Epistle is 1 Thes. 5:4-11.
ReplyDeleteRev. McCain, I think Gerhard's postil has the Transfiguration Gospel on the Last Sunday of the Church Year.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I had heard that Bugenhagen and Dietrich had done this, but as far as I can tell it was not actually done in many places, or only sporadically.
ReplyDeleteI guess my question is when did it become "standard" in the one year lectionary we use, or the lectionary upon which the "historic lectionary" is based.
It's ultimately trivial, I know, but it has me curious, and since I can't find Luther's postil sermon on Transfiguration or any Bach Cantata on the same...I'm frustrated!
: )
The Gospel readings point the way: by grace alone (Septuagesima's Gospel: no credit to us - working in the vineyard is a gift); by the Word alone (Sexagesima's Gospel: the operative power for the new life comes from God's own Words to us, not our ascetical efforts); by faith alone (Quinquagesima's Gospel: which is the joy of companionship with Jesus as with eyes no wide open and healed we follow Him up to Jerusalem). Pre-Lent, in other words, strips from us the illusion of "He does His part and we do ours" and shows us our total dependance upon our Lord; this change we seek is wrought freely by His grace at work through the power of His Word as He strengthens our faith to walk with Him through our own Calvarys and out of our tombs. If I may put it so, with Pre-Lent the Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism are cleansed out of Lent for us, and we can approach the Day of Ashes totally dependent upon our Lord.
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell, why Lutherans are evangelical catholics.
Wonderful post, Pastor Weedon.
Christine
I'm very intrigued by two points in this post - one is the transfer of Transfiguration to this Sunday, and the second is that you also have a pre-Lent cycle.
ReplyDeleteThank you, as always, for your educational posts.
Thanks, Christine and Mimi. Hard to believe that Lent is bearing down upon us already, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI am equally curious about how Baptism of our Lord came to be celebrated between Quinquagesima and Ash Wednesday in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary's calendar.
ReplyDeleteTo be sure, I understand the connection between Christ's Baptism and his trial in the wilderness, but it seems such an odd take.
Further, I can't figure out when it is supposed to be used. Is Gesima-tide bumped up a week to accomidate Baptism on a Sunday, or is it a weekday proper to be used on Monday or Tuesday before Ash Wednesday?
I realize that you don't use ELH, but it is a curiousity nonetheless.
Rob+
Hop over to Past Elder for a discussion of all this.
ReplyDeleteI doubt one will be able to fix a moment in time when it began to be celebrated in Lutheran observance where it is, in either the lectionary or the other lectionary recently ultimately derived from 1960s Rome, which is, where it happens in the life of Christ, just before Lent.
It seems to have been celebrated at various times in various places, not being fixed in the West until 1456 when Pope Callixtus III fixed it on 6 August to commemorate also when news that the Siege of Belgrade had been broken by the Hungarians reached Rome.
Not that 6 August was a new date for it -- the East has it there too.
I expect our usage represents a survival of an earlier local usage in the West since at the time of the Reformation its being fixed in the West on 6 August was a relatively recent papal decision. Which would also account for a lack of consistency in whether sermons turn up for it or not in historical collections.
Interesting that in Rome's new lectionary etc, contemporary worship with smells and bells and vestments and such instead of praise bands and such, it is still on 6 August whereas in our wannabe version we have located it in what is now its traditional Lutheran place, putting it right before Lent since Gesimatide got the axe after a centuries long run.
Past Elder,
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, in both the old and new Roman Lectionaries, Transfiguration was/is always commemorated on the Second Sunday of Lent.
Rob+
The reading for the Second Sunday of Lent is MT 17:1-9, which is Matthew's account of the Transfiguration indeed, but the commemoration of the Transfiguration per se is separate.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders -- OK, I wonder -- if given that the commemoration of the Transfiguration as a feast unto itself was not fixed in the West until relatively late, if perhaps its being read early in the Lenten Gospel readings, given the variety of observances before Callixtus, was either or both of a reason to perhaps not have a separate commemoration in some places, or to locate it at this time of year but dearlier just outside Lent itself, since it happened before going down to Jerusalem where there was much to suffer from the chief priests and elders (maybe including a couple of past ones too).
I use ELH; I'm an ELS pastor.
ReplyDeleteThe short answer is: Bugenhagen did it. This is part of the church order he brought to Denmark.
The way it works is: it's Quinquagesima. I typically alternate years using the Luke 18 gospel and observing the historic Quinquagesima, and observing Jesus' baptism. Both observances serve in treating sola fide.
Pastor Jerry Gernander
Bethany Lutheran Church (ELS)
Princeton, Minnesota