The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, in continuity with Martin Luther and subsequent confessional Lutheranism, observes the full, traditional Christian year as a vehicle of the gospel. In the 1980s, some Missouri Synod churches moved away from the church year as too restrictive, while others sought an even more thorough appropriation of the church’s ancient liturgical heritage.
The Saxon immigrants and pastors who organized the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other states (later, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod ) came to North America for the express purpose of establishing congregations that would be specifically Evangelical Lutheran in both doctrine and practice. The writings of Martin Luther and the confessional writings of the Book of Concord (1580) did not only guide along this path; they were regarded as signposts of Lutheran confessionalism and orthodoxy.
Luther and the Church Year
Luther’s own understanding of the liturgy, liturgical ceremony, and the provisions of the traditional church year is usually characterized as “conservative.” In fact, Luther recognized the value of these observations as not only pedagogical devices but as means by which the church extols and rejoices in the gospel. To Luther, both proclamation and sacramental administration were means by which the gospel offers, communicates, and imparts the grace that Christ has accomplished for sinners by his Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Where the gospel is rightly taught and proclaimed and the sacraments are rightly given, the provisions of the liturgy in the liturgical year are seen to be of inestimable value to the church and a most appropriate vehicle in the service of the gospel.
Living under the gospel, the church may not be bound, after the manner of the law, to a particular system of observances, readings, and liturgical formulae. Rather, such observances are to be seen as gifts that ought not to fall into disuse.
Luther’s own preaching, as he himself notes in An Order of Mass and Communion (1523) and the German Mass and Order of Service (1526), puts special emphasis on the proclamation of the traditional Gospel reading of the day at the Sunday celebration of the evangelical Mass. In later years the chorales and cantatas of the orthodox period would draw upon those same Sunday and festival readings for their primary inspiration.
The confessional awakening in nineteenth-century European Lutheranism out of which the Missourians came encompassed not only a revival of appreciation for the evangelical and catholic doctrinal position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church but also a renewed appreciation for the liturgical heritage of the Lutheran Reformation. Research into the earliest Evangelical Lutheran Church orders (Kirchen-Ordnungen) and the traditional liturgical music and chorales came to public attention in the works of Ludwig Amelius Richter, Friedrich Layriz, George Rietschel, and most notably, in the Agenda for Christian Congregations of the Lutheran Confessions prepared by Pastor Wilhelm Loehe for the immigrant congregations of the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, northern Indiana, and elsewhere.
The Missourians brought with them an emphatic appreciation for the strong relationship between their own orthodox theology and the liturgical treasures of the period of Lutheran orthodoxy that had culminated in the theological works of Johann Gerhard, Abraham Calov, and others.
The Book of Liturgy
In the newly organized Missouri Synod, Loehe’s almost encyclopedic liturgical work was supplanted in 1856 by the publication of the Synod’s own Agende (Book of Liturgy), based upon older Saxon models from a time before rationalistic and unionizing effects had taken their toll. Here, as in Loehe’s work, the church year appears as it did in the classical Reformation and orthodox periods, with all the major observances of the cycles of seasons that long antedated the Lutheran Reformation. Collects, Epistles, and Gospels are provided for the Sundays in Advent, the Feast of Christmas (three days), Circumcision, the Epiphany of the Lord, Lent and Palm Sunday (including Confirmation), Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter (three days), Ascension, Pentecost (three days), the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and the Sundays of the Trinity season.
In addition to the Agende and other liturgical materials produced for congregational use, devotional materials for use in the home were produced, as in the confessional and orthodox periods, which were based upon the themes and Scripture readings of the church year and included sermons on the Sunday Gospels.
Among the first generations of Missourians, saints’ days and special liturgical observances included the traditional days commemorating the apostles and evangelists, and St. Nicholas (Dec. 7), the Presentation of Our Lord and Purification of Mary or Candlemas (Feb. 2), Annunciation (March 25), St. John the Baptist (June 24), Visitation (July 2), St. Mary Magdalene Day (July 22), St. Lawrence Day (August 10), the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), St. Michael’s Day (September 29), the Feast of the Reformation, All Saints (November 1), Anniversary of the Consecration of the Church, the Festival of the Harvest, the Day of Repentance, and special propers for the ending of the church year.
Acculturation and the Liturgical Heritage
In many places, the pattern of congregational life was shaped by these observances. With the passing of time and the adoption of a new language and culture, the pattern of annual observances passed from German into English and a few commemorations were deleted. Although the progressive acculturation of Lutherans brought a general “Protestantizing,” causing many of the weekday commemorations and celebrations to fall into disuse in some places, liturgy and the church year continued to characterize Lutheran congregational life.
The publication of Lutheran Worship in 1981 as an official liturgy and hymnal of the Missouri Synod brought the restoration of almost all of the days noted in the earlier books. New commemorations were added, including The Confession of Saint Peter (January 18), St. Timothy, Pastor and Confessor (January 24), St. Titus, Pastor and Confessor (January 26), Martin Luther, Doctor and Confessor (February 18), C. F. W. Walther, Doctor (first President of the Synod, May 7), St. Barnabas, Apostle (June 11), the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession (June 25), St. Mary, Mother of our Lord (August 15), and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (November 2). Provision was made for the use of a three-year lectionary based on the Roman Catholic Ordo Lectionem Missae or a revised version of the traditional pericopal system. In congregations using Lutheran Worship, the pre-Lenten Sundays were dropped, and the number of Sundays in the Epiphany season was correspondingly increased, with the Sundays in the non-festal half of the church year is numbered from Pentecost rather than Trinity Sunday. Congregations using the older Lutheran Hymnal have maintained the earlier system.
The observance of the weekday commemorations, although by no means universal, seems to be on the increase. A large number of congregations have day schools, some of which take advantage of the opportunity to keep the entire calendar. In any case, the pattern of the church year and its seasons and cycles are still important to Missouri Synod Lutherans.
In general, although Advent and Lent are no longer kept as closed seasons with no extra-ordinary or festal activities permitted, most congregations observe these seasons with special mid-week devotional services, in many cases with additional weekday celebrations of the Sacrament of the Altar. Epiphany and Ascension services continue as weekday services in many places. Elsewhere their observance is transferred to the following Sunday.
Appointments for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist are provided for every day in Holy Week, including the uniquely Lutheran usage of celebrating the sacrament on Good Friday. There are no appointments for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Holy Saturday, but the Easter Vigil, which includes the lighting of the New Fire, the Prophecies, Holy Baptism, the Remembrance of Baptism by the worshiping congregation, and the celebration of the first Eucharist of Easter, is provided.
By the end of the 1980s, at a time when large numbers of Protestants of Reformed and evangelical background were exhibiting a renewed appreciation for liturgical seasons, a vocal minority in the Missouri Synod was expressing concern that the liturgy and the church year are too restrictive and were in any case out of tune with contemporary American culture. They have elected to move away from any observance of the church year excepting such major days as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. For others, however, the process has been one of addition rather than subtraction, from a desire to take fuller advantage of this opportunity to use the church’s heritage to extol the gospel and guide the ongoing life of the congregation according to its provisions.