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 Articles
The Christian Observance of Lent
Languages: English, Hebrew Although the resurrection of Jesus is celebrated once a week, on Sunday, the principal yearly feast of Christians is also the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection, celebrated on the day that is known as Easter Sunday. The Christian year is divided into a number of different liturgical periods. Most of the year is known as “ordinary time” which is separated from two main festive periods. The most important festive period is the one that reaches its peak with Easter (the commemoration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead) and a second period is the one that reaches its peak with Christmas (the commemoration of Jesus Christ’s birth).
Unlike Christmas, Easter does not fall on a set date in the yearly calendar. It is clear from all the Gospel accounts that Jesus was crucified at the time of the Jewish Passover. However, the link between Easter and Passover is not only a question of dates but also of content. The Jewish Passover is the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt, land of slavery. This celebration is fixed in the spring season, when the world witnesses new birth after the winter months. These very same themes are central to the Christian celebration of Easter too. The feast of Jesus’ resurrection celebrates the liberation from the slavery of sin and death and the birth into new life with Jesus, new life that is eternal.
In fact, the earliest Christians (and many Messianic Jews today) celebrated Easter not according to the Roman but according to the Jewish calendar: on the 14 Nissan, the eve of the Jewish Passover, or the Sunday after it. It was only in the fourth century that the Church detached Easter from the Jewish Passover, and fixed astronomical methods for deciding when Easter should be celebrated. Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls after the spring equinox. Further controversy as well as the Gregorian reforms in the sixteenth century led to a complex situation where Western and Eastern Churches often celebrate Easter on different dates even though they accept the same basic astronomical principle. In fact, Easter might indeed fall on the same Sunday for all Churches but there might also be one week, four weeks or even five weeks difference between the Western and Eastern Churches. What are the reasons for this discrepancy? Firstly, whereas the Western Church defined March 21 as the Spring Equinox and has a tabulated list of dates to decide when there is a full moon, the Orthodox Church continued to rely on the observation of both Equinox and full moon over Jerusalem. Furthermore, whereas Western Easter is completely independent of the Jewish Passover (and might even fall long before it), Orthodox Easter never falls before Jewish Passover. The longest differences between Eastern and Western Easter are the result of the Jewish leap year (when an entire month is added to the calendar just before the Jewish month of Nissan, a second month of Adar). The date of Easter is one of the important issues in dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox. In Jordan and in some towns and villages in the Holy Land, Christians, following Eastern and Western traditions, have reached agreement to celebrate the major feasts together. The agreement generally is that Christmas is celebrated according to the date fixed by the Western Church whilst Easter is celebrated according to the date fixed by the Eastern Church.
Easter is preceded by a long period of preparation that is called the Fast of Forty Days. Fasting is a practice well known in the Bible, connected with intense prayer and repentance. Why a fast of forty days? Clearly the symbolic number of forty refers to the forty years of Israel in the Wilderness, the forty days Moses fasted as intercession for the sins of Israel as well as the forty days Jesus spent, tempted by the Devil in the Wilderness and yet remaining ever faithful to the will of God.
In Western Churches, the Fast begins with a sober celebration on a Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, during the course of which the priest marks the believer with ashes (sprinkled on the head or marked on the forehead) as a sign of repentance and remorse for sin. Ashes are well known in this connection in the Old Testament too (cf. Jonah 3:6). As the priest applies the ashes to the head of the faithful, he says:
The day before Ash Wednesday, popularly known as “Mardi Gras” (Fat Tuesday), a day of carnival is celebrated in some places, before the somber period of fasting begins.
In the Orthodox Church and the Eastern Churches (Coptic, Syrian, Chaldean), there are periods of preparatory fasting even before the great fast begins. In the Byzantine tradition, there is a special focus in this preparatory period on Jesus’ parables about penitence. In the Eastern Churches, the preparatory fasting recalls the fasting of the Ninevites in the Old Testament Book of Jonah.
All Christians are called to live a period of self-sacrifice and abnegation as they prepare to accompany Jesus during his last days of suffering before his death and resurrection. In many Churches, there are strict laws of fasting and the believers do not eat meat or animal products (except on feast days that might fall during the fast). The strict fasting laws were reformed in the Catholic Church in the 1960s (and generally apply only to Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent) but Catholics are called upon to discipline themselves and initiate personal practices that prepare them in the spirit of the period for the solemn commemoration of the sufferings of Jesus. Many Churches also do not hold joyous celebrations like weddings at this time.
Each Sunday of the Fast in the Eastern and Orthodox Churches commemorates a person or event that deepens the penitential process undertaken by the believer. In the Byzantine tradition, for example, the Sundays of Lent commemorate (in order): the veneration of the icons, the veneration of the holy relics, the veneration of the Cross, the commemoration of John Climacus (the author of the “Ladder of Virtues” that calls the reader to a Christian life) and the commemoration of Mary the Egyptian (a repentant prostitute turned desert ascetic). In the Syriac tradition, the Sundays of Lent commemorate the miracles of Jesus. In the Roman Catholic Church too particular readings on Sundays and weekdays recall the need to repent and purify oneself.
The Saturday before the beginning of Holy Week, the Churches recall the raising of Lazarus from the dead. This event (cf. John 11:1-44) holds out the promise of the Resurrection. In the Byzantine tradition, the Troparion of this day proclaims:
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