There are reports (documented in the comments below) that various ostensibly evangelical congregations are cancelling worship services this Lord’s Day. This has become something of a pattern in recent years. It seems that people, including the congregants, pastors, and church staff are so exhausted from the various Christmas-related activities (e.g., live nativity scenes, Christmas plays, Christmas parties, special worship services) that they are just too tired to meet for public worship on the Christian Sabbath. It should be obvious why this is wrong and that it reflects a confused set of priorities. One fears, however, that it is not obvious so bear with me as I try to explain.

How Things Became So Confused

Above I wrote “ostensible evangelicals” because that is how many of these congregations self-identify. Yet it is no longer clear what the word evangelical refers. In 1989 David Bebbington offered a fourfold characterization (known as as Bebbington’s Quadrilateral): Biblicism, Crucicentrism, Conversionism, and Activism. Evangelical theology and piety is said to be bible-centered (though “biblicism” denotes rather more than that, and not in a good way), cross-centered, conversion-oriented, and activist. There is much truth in the quadrilateral sociologically and historically, inasmuch as it does reflect what modern evangelicalism became in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Those of us with strong connections to the Reformation, however, will notice that characterization of evangelical is rather different from what characterized evangelicals in the Reformation and post-Reformation periods. Bebbington’s quadrilateral has more to do with the movement(s) known as Pietism than it does with the Reformation.

Of the four characteristics, however, perhaps activism and conversionism best explain how Christmas chaos has come to supersede Sabbath rest for so many evangelicals. In the 18th century, among evangelicals, under the influence of pietism (not to be confused with piety), Christianity came to be considered chiefly a matter of personal religious experience. In Recovering the Reformed Confession, I called this the QIRE, the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience. What came to matter most in the 18th-century revivals (the so-called First Great Awakening) was whether one has the right sort of religious experience.

This view of conversion is quite distinct from the Reformation notion of conversion, which tended to have more to do with progressive sanctification, what the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) called the putting to death of the old man and the making alive of the new (see Heidelberg 96–98). In the Reformed view, new life is the mysterious gift of the Holy Spirit, who ordinarily works quietly through the preaching of the gospel (see Heidelberg 65). It does not necessarily entail any thrashing about, floating across rooms and the like. Indeed, if one begins thrashing or floating, should it occur in a well-ordered Reformed worship service, one is likely to be gently escorted to a quiet room to await counseling from a minister or an elder.

Activism is other characteristic highlighted by Bebbington that helps explain how Christmas has come to marginalize one of the 52 holidays actually instituted by Jesus. Another word for activism is busy-ness. The Pietists were one part quietist, waiting for the right sort of religious experiences, and one part activist, doing things in the service of the Lord. Contemporary evangelical piety is very busy. There are home Bible studies, fellowship groups, youth groups, college groups, young adult groups, short-term missions ad infin. In the modern period being an evangelical can be exhausting.

The Reformed Alternative

The Reformed vision for the Christian faith and the Christian life was rather different. Their idea of the Christian faith was a rather fuller account of Christian doctrine. Certainly the cross was at the heart of their message but they confessed much more about the faith. They began with the an account of Scripture, God, Humanity, Christ, Salvation, Church (and sacraments), Last things, and the Christian life. All those things were said to be properly essential to the faith. We preached the cross but we also preached the law in its pedagogical use, the gospel that included Christ’s substitutionary, active obedience and salvation by grace alone, through faith alone. We preached the law and the gospel with a view with the expectation that God the Spirit sovereignly and freely uses that message to give new life and true faith to his elect. We did it with the expectation that Christians united to Christ would grow in grace. Under that rubric, we also preached the moral law in its second and third uses.

All this preaching went on in the context of the visible, institutional church. This is one many characteristics of the Reformation lost by modern evangelicals since the 18th century. The Reformed conviction was that the Lord Jesus instituted a weekly holiday. We have called it the Lord’s Day and the Christian Sabbath. They are essentially the same thing.

By contrast, modern evangelicals have tended to see the visible church as one option for fulfilling the mission of the church but certainly not the only or even the primary agency for fulfilling Christ’s mission. In early-21st century evangelical theology and piety, the church has increasing come to be seen in therapeutic terms. It’s a place where people go to get an emotional lift and to find tips for self-help winsomely expressed by understanding leaders. Add to this the post-Victorian commercialization (and sentimentalizing) of Christmas and in such a context we can see how Christmas, a time when the culture seems to be at least tangentially interested in Christian themes, has come to be so important and so exhausting that Christians need a rest on the Sunday after Christmas.

To busy evangelicals, confessional Reformed piety offers rest. We may appreciate the secular aspects of Christmas (the lights, the good wishes, etc) and the theological truth of the incarnation and virgin conception of our Lord while demurring from the Santa-ization of Christmas. In truth, almost as soon as God the Son incarnate was born of the Virgin Mary, the powers of this world sought to murder him and indeed, murdered many infants in the attempt. Jesus was not joyless but he was also suffered all his life (Heidelberg 37) on behalf of his elect.

The creational Sabbath that he instituted, which he administered under the Mosaic (Old) covenant on the last day of the week (Saturday) he transformed by his resurrection on the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. This was the day on which the Christians met and worshiped (twice). This was the practice of the apostles and the early post-apostolic church. They knew nothing about the exhausting pace of “evangelical” activity that we know today. They knew nothing of Christmas. They knew about the Lord’s Day. They knew about the preaching of the Word, the use of the sacraments (Acts 2:42) and the use of church discipline (see Matt 18; 1 Cor 5). They prayed. They held fellowship meals but they did not so exhaust themselves so as to be unable to gather for public worship. They knew that it was through the preaching of the gospel (Rom 10:14) that God the Spirit operates to bring his elect to new life.

As heirs of the Jewish Sabbath tradition, they knew the pitfalls of legalism (i.e., the making up of rules about the Sabbath) but they knew that God had instituted the Sabbath in creation (Gen 2:1; Ex 20:8–11) and not at Sinai. They knew that the pattern of work and rest in built in the nature of things.

There is an alternative. It is a pattern of regular work and rest. It is a wonderful relief from the modern evangelical pattern of frenzy and collapse symbolized by the cancellation of public worship. There is a better way. Jesus was born for us sinners. He obeyed for us sinners. He was crucified, died, buried, and raised for us sinners. He ascended where he rules from his throne. He has earned our rest and invites us to enter into it by grace alone, through faith alone. He invites us to gather with his people and to “kiss the Son” because “blessed are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 2:12).

Find a place to worship this Lord’s Day here.

Resources

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