The The Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast. I am Corey J. Mahler.

And I'm still, whoa. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.

And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.

And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens

to give light upon the earth, and it was so. And when God smelled the pleasing aroma,

the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention

of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again strike down every living creature

as I have done. While the

earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

These two readings from Genesis 1 and Genesis 8 from the creation and after the flood are a reminder

to us that seasonality is a part of creation.

The way that God created everything involves seasons and patterns and repetition

and resonances among those various patterns as they harmonize.

And so today, as we wrap up the calendar year, as the church has just begun, the church year

in the West, I thought that we thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about

the liturgical calendar, about our liturgical life in the church as we're observing all the things that are revealed in Scripture that are not revealed in creation.

Because on one hand, you have God's seasons that are shown in the stars and in the weather that we have on the earth.

On the other hand, you have seasons that are only present if you are aware of the Word of God. And these have been

historically observed before Christianity, before Christ, and then after Christ, and in different forms,

because prior to Christ's birth, the pattern of life in believers pointed towards his birth and all the prophecies that he would fulfill.

When he was born, when he fulfilled them, when he died, and was resurrected from the dead,

he completed the patterns that had been established prior to his birth.

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