Church Year

While Christmas focuses on the incarnation of our Lord — God becoming flesh — the season of Epiphany emphasizes the manifestation or self-revelation of God in that same flesh of Christ.

In the One-Year Lectionary, Transfiguration is followed by three Sundays of preparation and instruction from Jesus before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

In the Three-Year Lectionary, the Feast of the Transfiguration is observed on the last Sunday in Epiphany and is three days before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent and, if Sundays are omitted, is 40 days before Easter.

The Annunciation commemorates the visit of the angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Mary, announcing that the eternal Son of God would take up human flesh in her womb and, in accordance with Isaiah’s prophecy, be born of a virgin.

The Son of David comes in gentle humility, “sitting on a donkey’s colt,” yet as the King of Israel “in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13–15). He comes to be lifted up in glory on the cross in order to cast out “the ruler of this world” and draw all people to Himself (John 12:23–32).

The holy apostles received this New Testament in His blood from the Lord Jesus “on the night when he was betrayed,” and they delivered the same to His Church, which we also now receive in the name and remembrance of Christ (1 Cor. 11:23–26; Matt. 26:26–28).

We remember when Jesus, the Lamb of God, was led to the slaughter of His cross as the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sin of the world.

Christ’s triumph from the grave on Resurrection day is the cause for our rejoicing. His purity before his Father becomes our purity.

The Church continues to confess the confident truth that the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — has given himself for our salvation.