It’s Not Easy Being Green
Kermit the Frog notwithstanding, it’s not easy being green.
When you attend services over the next several weeks, you may notice the liturgical color has changed from Christmas white to Epiphany green. Well, it’s also Pentecost green… and I began to wonder why green for Epiphany. So I started a “deep dive” to see what I could discover.
If we jump into the “Wayback Machine,” we would find that I had a Family Table Devotion about the liturgical colors in 2020. However, this was before the Devotions were published on the Hope website, so I can’t link to it. [It is short and does have some informational links so I will include a copy at the end of this devotion.]
The Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost are termed “Ordinary Time.” Now, due to the eccentricities of the American/English language, we hear “Ordinary Time” and think “commonplace” or “unexceptional.” Yet the meaning is something we learned (and maybe forgot) in elementary school. Numbers can be either “ordinal” or “cardinal.” Cardinal numbers refer to amounts of something: one chair, two chairs, three- four- five- (etc.) chairs… Ordinal numbers show a position in a series: The Lions are in first place, second place, third place, etc. Hence, the Second Sunday after Epiphany is “ordinal.”
The next question then is, “Why are the Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost “Ordinary Time?” These seasons do not have (in liturgical terms) a “proper.” A proper is a specific set of prayers and readings for the seasons. Think of the “O Antiphons” for Advent.
As for the green color:
Epiphany’s message of Christ’s revelation to the Gentiles along with the season’s traditional emphasis on extending Christ’s kingdom through missions, calls for the use of green-the color symbolic of growth.
From <https://www.lcms.org/worship/church-year/colors-of-liturgical-seasons>
I have distilled my deep dive, I pray that you have found it informational.
Trust the Promises,
Steve Skiver
The following is from the Family Table Devotion from October 26, 2020.
Seeing Red
This past Sunday, we celebrated Reformation. Reformation Sunday is a festival service in the Lutheran Church liturgical calendar. It was nice to see the paraments and vestments changed from green to red. It seemed like it was green for so long; that may be just the year 2020 lasting so long. I thought it might be interesting to look at the colors for the seasons. So here is a link to the LCMS website for “The Colors of the Liturgical Seasons.” While there, you may want to download the readings for the new church year (we use the three year lectionary) which begins November 29.
So while my writing may be short and sweet, there is a bunch to explore!
We hold that one is justified by faith (Romans 3:28)
Steve Skiver