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The enneagram of the church year

The church year is an annual cycle of festivals and commemorations – and once again an enneagram analysis helps to illustrate and emphasize the nature, and the value, of the cycle.

It is the significance rather than the length of each season, which holds the key to this analysis – as reflected in the amount of Scripture and significant theology attached to each season. Taking this approach, the events of Holy Week take up a significant proportion of the cycle.

Once again we find a correspondence – not only with the strategy board, but also with the cycle of reflection and action.

Advent is both the expectant beginning and the triumphant end of the cycle of the year. In Advent we recall the anticipation of the people of the Old Covenant – looking forward to the coming of the Messiah – and we also look forward to the return of Christ in glory at the end of time. For the people of the Old Covenant and for ourselves it is the season of waiting in trust and peace for God to come to us, in God’s perfect time: it is the resting state of the cycle, the beginning and end point NINE.

The key moment of action being taken – of work being done – is the death of Christ on the cross, in which Jesus is faithful and loyal to the end. It is the action point – and it is the sector for faithfulness and loyalty – at SIX.

In the sequence of events that leads to the cross, the point of no return is the arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. This comes between the Last Supper – which we have already seen has the nature of FOUR – and the process of the trial – during which Jesus remains silent, observing, wiser than any merely human soul, and quite detached from the humiliation being inflicted upon him. The process of the trial belongs at FIVE.

The work of the cross culminates in resurrection – point SEVEN: a great and profound and eternal joy, defeating all – literally all – the pain of the world.

Forty days later, Jesus’ final ‘debriefing’ of the disciples concludes with the ascension, at EIGHT, when Jesus ascends to the right hand of God – to the place of kingdom and power and glory for ever. And then to empower the church for the time that lies ahead, the Spirit comes at Pentecost – pushing the boundaries of the possible – to continue and complete the work of Christ in the world.

And in the wake of that first Pentecost, with great anticipation we look again for the coming of Christ – all around us now in a thousand different ways, and in great glory at the end of time: the contemporary Advent, the ‘now,’ point NINE.

Energy point THREE has to be the moment of decision – when Jesus determined to go through with the challenge that was created by the compassionate will of God and the sinfulness of the world. That moment of decision is represented by the very beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry: his public baptism by John, and the overcoming of the temptations in the wilderness. From that time onwards, the pattern is set. These particular events have Jesus setting an example in baptism for others to follow, and then, in the wilderness temptations, working out his model of true leadership and ‘achievement’ for the years ahead – and this is THREE. In the church year, it is Lent.

The seasons between Advent and Lent are Christmas and the Epiphany. Christmas is all about the wonderful ideal of the divine and the human uniting in the very birth – the very concept – of Christ, the perfect human being, the one who is pure and who will purify the world for God. Celebrating the perfect, the ideal – Christmas has the nature of ONE. It moves us out of the ‘waiting’ of Advent into the life of Christ – and the cycle of the year.

The feast of the Epiphany is kept twelve days later – the traditional date for the arrival of the Magi. In the Epiphany, we see the first application of the ideals that are to be made known in Christ: we see God in Christ welcoming the Gentiles. And Epiphany is also about adoration and gifts for this child: Epiphany is TWO.

All down the right hand side of the diagram we see the events that lead inevitably toward ‘the point of no return.’ And from that point onwards, we see the process by which the work of Christ is completed – and established ‘until the end of the age.’

The internal arrows within the diagram now make valuable connections as we meditate on these nine great themes of our salvation.

In Advent, at NINE, as we await the coming glory of our salvation, it is worth reflecting on the cost – at the cross, at SIX. Kneeling at the foot of the cross on Good Friday, at SIX, we are taken back to the reflective mode of Lent, at THREE. In Lent, at THREE, as we ponder the cost of our salvation, we can continue in the sure knowledge that our salvation is nevertheless at hand – the sure hope of Advent at NINE.

At Christmas, at ONE, we reflect on the incarnation, and where it leads – the Last Supper at FOUR, the breaking of bread. Whenever bread is broken at FOUR, we can offer our adoration to the living Christ, like the Magi who recognized the Christ at TWO – recognizing Jesus, like the early disciples, in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:30‑31). Adoring the Christ child at Epiphany, at TWO, we are struck by the fact that this child is also lord of all, at the right hand of God the creator – this child is the ascended Christ of EIGHT, and present with us today through the gift of Pentecost, also at EIGHT.

The cost of Christ’s glory at EIGHT was the earthly humiliation of the trial at FIVE (Philippians 2:6‑11). Each Good Friday, hearing again the account of that trial at FIVE, we have the privilege of knowing that the day of resurrection is coming, at SEVEN. And on the day of resurrection, at SEVEN, Christ is once again among us, and we rejoice again with the joy of Christ’s birth among us at ONE.

God in Christ began and completed this cycle once only as the historic Jesus of Nazareth – beginning and ending at the right hand of God with humankind waiting in hope and anticipation. It is to remind us of these key events – the foundations of our Christian lives – that the church recalls them all in sequence year by year.

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