When you visit Our Saviour, you may notice that the cloths on the altar, pulpit, and lectern (called paraments) and the pastor’s stole change color from season to season. The colors follow the church year, the calendar that the church has kept for centuries. Each year the church walks through the life of Christ from His coming to His ascension, and then through the life of His people, gathered by the Holy Spirit and waiting for His return. The colors tell you where the church stands on that road on any given Sunday.
Our Saviour follows the historic one-year lectionary, the order of readings that the Western church used for well over a thousand years and that Luther and the reformers kept. For that reason, a few of our Sunday names may be new to you, even if you have worshiped in other Lutheran churches.
The Sundays with Latin names
Many of our Sundays take their names from the first Latin word or words of the Introit, the psalm verse that opens the service. The First Sunday in Advent is Ad Te Levavi, “To You I lift up,” from Psalm 25:1. The first Sunday in Lent is Invocavit, “He shall call upon Me,” from Psalm 91:15. The Sundays after Easter include Jubilate, “Shout for joy” (Psalm 66:1), and Cantate, “Sing” (Psalm 98:1). The name tells you the theme of the day before a single reading is heard.
Advent: purple
The church year begins four Sundays before Christmas. Advent means “coming.” The church prepares to celebrate Christ’s birth at Bethlehem and watches for His return in glory. Purple is the color of repentance and of royalty, fitting for a people who confess their sins and wait for their King.
On the Third Sunday in Advent, called Gaudete (“Rejoice,” from Philippians 4:4), the purple gives way to rose. The lighter color marks a pause for joy halfway through the season of waiting.
Christmas and Epiphany: white
White is the color of the festivals of Christ. It appears on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, on the Circumcision and Name of Jesus (New Year’s Eve), on the Epiphany (January 6), and on the Baptism of Our Lord. At Epiphany the Magi find the Christ Child, and the church celebrates that God has revealed His Son to the nations.
The Sundays that follow the Epiphany stay in white. They show Jesus revealing His glory through His first miracles. The season ends with the Transfiguration, when Christ’s face shines on the mountain.
A red Sunday sometimes interrupts the Christmas white. Red marks the blood of the martyrs, and the church remembers the Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem whom Herod killed, in the days after Christmas.
The pre-Lenten Sundays: green
Three Sundays stand between the Epiphany season and Lent: Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. The names mean roughly seventy, sixty, and fifty days before Easter. The modern three-year calendar dropped these Sundays, while the historic calendar kept them as a time of preparation. Their readings speak of grace, of the Word that God sows, and of the road to Jerusalem. The paraments turn green, the color of growth. The Gloria in Excelsis and the Alleluia fall silent and do not return until Easter.
Lent and Holy Week: purple, white, and black
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts forty days, not counting Sundays. Purple returns as the church repents and follows Jesus toward the cross. On the Fifth Sunday in Lent, called Judica, Passiontide begins, and our crucifixes are draped in purple cloth.
Palm Sunday opens Holy Week. On Maundy Thursday the paraments are white for the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and after the service the altar is stripped bare. On Good Friday the church is in black. The crucifixes are draped in black, the altar has no frontal, and a single candle stands at the center of the altar.
Easter: white
The Easter Vigil begins in darkness on Saturday evening. The Paschal candle, the large candle that stands for the risen Christ, is carried into the church and lit, and white returns to the altar. Easter is a season of fifty days, not a single Sunday, and the white remains through the Ascension of Our Lord forty days after Easter. After the Ascension, the Paschal candle moves to the baptismal font, where it reminds us that we were buried and raised with Christ in Baptism (Romans 6:4).
Pentecost and Trinity: red and white
On Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles as tongues of fire (Acts 2:3), and the paraments are red. The next Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Trinity, in white, when the church confesses the one God in three persons.
The Trinity season: green
The long half of the church year runs from June to late November. Our Saviour counts these Sundays “after Trinity” rather than “after Pentecost,” as the church did for centuries. Green returns for the whole season. The first half of the year taught who Christ is and what He has done. The Trinity season teaches how His people live by faith in Him. On the first Sunday in October we keep the Anniversary of the Dedication of our church, which we call Family Day, and the paraments stay green.
Red interrupts the green twice in this season. On the last Sunday in June we remember the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession in 1530, when the Lutheran princes confessed their faith before the emperor. On the last Sunday in October we keep the Festival of the Reformation. Both days honor faithful confession of the Gospel, and red is the color of confession and of martyrs.
The end of the church year: white and green
All Saints’ Day (November 1, kept on the following Sunday when it falls on a weekday) is white, as we give thanks for all who have died in the faith. The last Sundays of the church year return to green, with readings about the end of the world and Christ’s return in glory. Those readings lead back to Advent, and the year begins again.
The colors at a glance
| Color | When you will see it |
|---|---|
| Purple | Advent, Lent, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday |
| Rose | The Third Sunday in Advent |
| White | Christmas, Epiphany and the Sundays after it, the Baptism of Our Lord, the Transfiguration, Maundy Thursday, Easter through the Ascension, Holy Trinity, All Saints’ Day, and many feasts of Christ and the saints |
| Green | The pre-Lenten Sundays and the Sundays after Trinity |
| Red | Pentecost, the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession, the Reformation, and the days of martyrs |
| Black | Good Friday |