Yes, what we look forward to this coming Sunday morning really does come down to us through millennia. This blog post, adapted from Carl C. Fickenscher II’s book Looking Forward to Sunday Morning: Reflections on the Church Year, outlines the history of the lectionary so you can see how each Sunday service is passed down to you today.
Historical Context of Liturgies
Dating back to the last centuries before Christ, the Jews in their synagogues used what we call a “lectionary”—that is, a schedule calling for certain readings (“lections” or lessons) from the Bible on certain days. Prior to the writing of the New Testament, readings for each Sabbath came from the Torah, or Law (the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, written by Moses), the Prophets (such as the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and the Psalms. When Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth one Sabbath (Lk 4:16–30), He knew that the reading of the Prophets that day would be from Isaiah 61. Thus, He came prepared to preach a sermon on that text.
The early Christians followed this practice of a lectionary, incorporating, obviously, the New Testament writings, from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the Epistles (letters by Paul, like Romans and Galatians, and by other apostles, like 1 and 2 Peter), along with readings from the Old Testament. As a church year gradually developed, the lectionary naturally manifested it—especially during the months of the year that commemorate the great events in the life of Christ: His birth, His death and resurrection, His ascension back to heaven, and His sending of the Holy Spirit. During this half of the church year—Christmas (which also includes the seasons of Advent and Epiphany) and Easter (extending from Lent through Easter to Ascension and Pentecost)—the lectionary readings declare the events and themes of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
The One-Year Lectionary
By the seventh and eighth centuries, a one-year schedule of readings was fairly firm and widely followed. That included readings for the remaining months of the year, what we call the Time of the Church or the Sundays after Pentecost. Rather than highlight the events in Jesus’ life, these Sundays consider His teachings on issues Christians face as we await His return. Thus, over a one-year period, the chief events and teachings of Christ and His Word would be covered—and then repeated each subsequent year. The Lutheran reformers of the sixteenth century generally kept this lectionary, making some modifications.
Of course, a lectionary of once-a-week readings cannot cover all the words of Scripture. Another word for a reading or lection, in fact, is pericope (pronounced pe-RIC-o-pee), from a Greek word that means “cutting around.” With time expectations on our worship services, we have to cut things. (Thus, the lectionary is also called a pericopal system.) Of the roughly 31,000 verses in the Bible, our current one-year lectionary selects just over 2,700 verses, or 8.7 percent. (Of the New Testament, the much shorter of the two and with two readings per week, 23.1 percent is incorporated. Just 3.7 percent of the much longer Old Testament is read.)
The Three-Year Lectionary
So in the early 1960s, one directive from the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) was to devise a three-year lectionary—three years worth of Bible readings instead of the traditional one. In short order, Protestants and Lutherans developed three-year lectionaries of their own, heavily based on the Vatican II design, but with appropriate editing, not drawing from the Apocrypha read by Roman Catholics. Largely because of the attraction of hearing that much more of the Bible, three-year lectionaries are now used by a very substantial majority of congregations, including in the LCMS. The three-year lectionary this book studies is from Lutheran Service Book (2006), a gentle revision of what appeared in its predecessor hymnal, Lutheran Worship (1982). …
Each of the three years is designated as either Series A or “Year A” (pp xiv–xv), Series B or “Year B” (pp xvi–xvii), or Series C or “Year C” (pp xviii–xix). (The one-year lectionary is shown on pp xx–xxi, and festivals, which are the same for all three years and both lectionaries, follow on pp xxii–xxiii.) Which year are you in now? Well, for an historical benchmark, it happens that 2017, the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, was a Year A. That meant that 2018 was a Year B and 2019 was a Year C. (Actually, the church year begins with Advent 1 in late November or early December of the preceding calendar year, so that Year A of the Reformation anniversary in fact began on November 27, 2016, but you get the idea.) Then the cycle repeats: 2020 was A, 2021 was B, and 2022 was C. Which means that 2023, 2026, 2029, 2032, and so on are basically Year A. Likewise, 2024, 2027, 2030, 2033, and all that follow in turn are Year B. And 2025, 2028, 2031, 2034, and so on are Year C. Still not sure? Ask Pastor. He’s the ultimate go-to for all such questions.
Blog post adapted from Looking Forward to Sunday Morning: Reflections on the Church Year © 2025 Carl C. Fickenscher II, published by Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Read more about the lectionary, propers, and rhythm of the church year with this three-year lectionary devotional, Looking Forward to Sunday Morning.
