To all those who could use an extra day
James Cathcart
February 29, 2024
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To all those who could use an extra day
Hitting Pause this Leap Year
By James Cathcart
We love an extended metaphor here at Sanctuary First! If you give us just a hint of an analogy — we’ll leap at the chance. Because we are passionate about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit — and we are enthusiastic about using the gifts of language, imagery, music and story to share that passion with others!
So, this year, as it’s a leap year, we have been leaping into Lent! Over the first part of Lent we have been Leaping with God — inviting one another to leap into prayer, leap into the Bible, and leap into action! Soon we will be leaping with Esther, Nehemiah, Mary Magdalene and Nicodemus as they work with their communities to make the leap.
But as we arrive at the leap day itself — 29th February — we are going to take a moment to hit the pause button.
While researching our themes I came across the quirky fact that back in the day, back in the early days of the old Julian calendar, we didn’t add a day every four years, instead we repeated one!
In the Gregorian calendar, the one that we widely use across the world today, one day is added every four years to make up for the fact that it doesn’t take us exactly 365 days to travel round the sun. Although to be precise it’s not every four years, as further mathematical refinement means we skip leap years that are divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400 to get things to line up!
Why do we bother? Well if we didn’t, over time we would feel the time slip as the months would gradually shift over the centuries and lose sync with the seasons that we are used to. January wouldn’t feel like January anymore. A year is an imperfect thing, an order imposed on unruly time.
We have got accustomed to Leap Years, and that extra day at the end of February, but it was only about 600 or so years ago that February 29th was officially formalised. Before that we would repeat February 24th.
That’s right.
There would be two February 24ths.
Each year still had only 365 days, it just that every four years it would have one of those days twice.
The 24th of February.
Everyone would agree to go through the 24th of February. And then the next day they’d do it again. Officially it was still the 24th. What a head-trip…
Have you ever woken up and thought, I wish I could do yesterday over again? Or have you ever gone to sleep, wishing this day could go on a little longer? How must it have felt in years gone by when people were conscious of living the same day twice?
Of course they weren’t, it was merely an admin glitch, and many of them were likely oblivious, with precise dating perhaps being less important in some ways in that bygone age. And yet — knowing when to observe the rituals of the year, the festivals of the church, has always been important and many perhaps would have keenly felt that holding pattern, that extra day of reflection, that inflection point, part way through Lent, where the year goes on pause.
So, today let’s hit pause. We know that today is the 29th of February, Leap Day. But we could imagine also what it would be like if we had two 28ths of February this year instead.
And as we imagine it we could take time to remember all those who could use an extra day.
Those who could use an extra day to revise, to cram, to get up to speed.
Those who could use an extra day to rest, to breathe out, to do nothing.
Those who could use an extra day to meet the deadline.
Those who could use an extra day for a practice run.
Those who could use an extra day to look over their options.
Those who could use an extra day to say goodbye.
Those who could use an extra day to find a solution.
Those who could use an extra day to scramble a bit more together.
Those who could use an extra day to come to terms.
Those who could use an extra day to get to safety.
Those who could use an extra day to prepare for the storm.
Those who could use an extra day to see something from someone else’s point of view.
Those who could use an extra day to get everyone together.
Those who could use an extra day to make it home.
Those who could use an extra day to say ‘I love you’.
And as we do, we can hand these dear people over to the loving hands of God, who has all the time in the world for them.
To Jesus who makes time for each and every one of them.
To the Holy Spirit, who will find each of them in time — with time to spare.
Because every single day
of every single year
God leaps out
to us.
James Cathcart
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