The advantages of an ecclesiastical calendar.
With their new position as an independent nation, and their new privileges as God's redeemed people (Exodus 6:6), the Israelites received the gift of a new ecclesiastical calendar. Their civil calendar remaining as before, their civil year commencing with Tisri, about the time of the autumnal equinox, and consisting of twelve months of alternately twenty-nine and thirty days, they were now commanded to adopt a new departure for their sacred year, and to reckon its commencement from Abib or Nisan, which began about the time of the vernal equinox, or March 21. This was advantageous to them in several ways.
I. IT SECURED THEM A TIME OF RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND CONTEMPLATION, NOT ALREADY OCCUPIED BY WORLDLY CARES. The commencement of a civil year naturally brings with it various civil and worldly cares, which occupy the mind, demand the attention, and distract the thoughts. The worldly position has to be reviewed, accounts made up, stock taken, debts claimed and paid, subscriptions renewed or discontinued, agents communicated with, orders given, arrangements made in some instances for the whole of the coming twelvemonth; and the result is, that the mind of most men is then so occupied, not to say harassed, that it cannot turn itself with any vigour or freshness to the contemplation of things heavenly and spiritual. Of great value then, and importance, is it that religion should have a separate time to itself for a review of the spiritual position, for the taking of stock in a religious sense, the balancing of the account with heaven, the forming of plans for the spiritual life beforehand, since that life has as much need to be carefully provided for as the worldly life. The opening of a year being the natural time for such a review, the new arrangement made naturally suggested it, and provided a quiet time for it.
II. IT GAVE THE IDEAS CONNECTED WITH THE FESTIVAL ABOUT TO BE INSTITUTED A GREATER HOLD ON MEN'S THOUGHTS THAN MIGHT OTHERWISE HAVE BEEN THE CASE. Everyone recognises the importance of a new beginning. A religion naturally strikes its key-note at the commencement of its round of services. As the coming of Christ into the world is the very essence of Christianity, the ecclesiastical year of Christendom commences with Advent. Thus Christians are taught that the foundation-stone of their religion, the root out of which it all springs, is the Incarnation. For Mosaism the key-note was deliverance from Egypt, and covenant relationship with God as His people by means of sacrifice. Deliverance from Egypt was redemption from servitude, and the commencement of a free national life. Sacrifice was the appointed means of keeping up and renewing the covenant relationship begun in circumcision. In the Passover these two thoughts were blended together, and Israel had to meditate on both. The one thought was necessary to call forth that loving trust in the favour and goodness of God, which lies at the root of all acceptable service; the other was needed to give ease to the conscience, to reassure the trembling sinner, and remove his sense of a guilt that separated him from God, and made his circumcision unavailing. The prominence given to these ideas by the position of the Paschal Festival, impressed them upon the minds of the Israelites as fundamental and vital truths.
III. IT GAVE THE RELIGION GENERALLY A STATUS AND A POSITION OF INDEPENDENCE, WHICH INCREASED MAN'S RESPECT FOR IT. In all times and countries the suspicion occurs to some, that religion is but a form of statecraft, a politic invention of governors to render government more easy. Anything that marks the co-ordinate authority of Church and State in their separate spheres, and especially the independence of the Church, is valuable, as an obstacle to Erastianism, and an indication of the Church's inherent right to regulate Church affairs. An ecclesiastical calendar distinct from the civil calendar is no doubt a little matter; but it implies an important principle, and is perhaps not without some influence over the general tone of thought and feeling in a country.