Easter is celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. I like the sound of “after the first full moon.” I like how it ties the liturgical calendar to the rhythms of the planet, the migration of birds, the mating of frogs, the amount of light in our days. I realize that the Council of Nicaea established this method of dating in an effort to make Easter distinct from Passover. “We ought not,” said Constantine, “to have anything in common with the Jews.” What was he thinking? As if by some anti-Semitic decree Christians might have nothing in common with the very ground that birthed them.
Thank God we are transformed in spite of ourselves. This is a crucial element of the Lent-Easter cycle: whether or not we orchestrate our transformation properly, death will be defeated. But we would do well to pay attention. Christian or not, we humans are united in the deprivation of winter and the longing for spring. It cannot hurt the Christian cause to consider how deeply our faith connects us to the cycles of creation. “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” These words of Ash Wednesday remind us not just of our mortality but also of our lives as earthly creatures. According to Genesis, we are made of dirt and of God’s breath blown into our fleshy lungs, not holy sparkles and some disembodied spirit.
Lent is intimately connected to the coming of spring. The word means “spring” in Middle English, from the same origin as “lengthen”: a lengthening of days. The Latin prefix “lent-” simply means “slow,” and this is how we experience Lent in Minnesota. Spring comes so damn slowly here. We are so deprived in winter—of color, light, sound, smell, vitamin D. We hardly have to make a decision to fast; we’ve been thrust into a sensory deprivation chamber. Lent is an almost unbearably slow wait.
