‘Tis the Season of the Paschal Mystery
By Chaplain Chaplain Corey Thornton

On February 22, the Christian season of Lent begins. On that day you may notice some wearing a dark, charcoal-like cross on their foreheads. The most likely explanation for this is that they have attended an Ash Wednesday service at a church or chapel. Ash Wednesday is a service that marks the begging of the Lenten season, roughly fifty days before Easter Day.

I suspect that many would guess that Christmas is considered the key feast or festival of the Christian calendar. In actuality, it is Easter that represents the core of Christian understanding. Just as the season of Advent helps to prepare for Christmas, so the season of Lent is in preparation of Easter. So Easter is not just one day when we hide eggs and hold a potluck picnic, but it is a cycle that begins with Lent, then continues to Holy Week and culminates in Easter. The main theme of the cycle is known as the paschal mystery, which is the dying and rising again of Jesus Christ. Paschal is originally a Hebrew word used by Jews to identify the Passover.

It was used later by Christians in the Greek and Latin traditions as a name for Easter, which they regarded as the Christian Passover. The word has survived in several English dialects; one being as ‘pace-eggs,’ which is where we find the tradition of Easter eggs.

We begin this important season with Ash Wednesday which has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), where covering oneself with sackcloth and ashes was a sign of repentance and mourning. Early Christians also wore sackcloth and ashes as a sign of their repentance. Historically this was a time when those who had been separated from the church would come back and make amends with the congregation and repent to God for their sins. Ash Wednesday thus began to function something like how Yom Kippur does for the Jewish faith. For the penitent, reconciliation reached completion on Easter morning.

While Lent is still a fitting season for people to consider returning to church. Most no longer see the need for repentance to be limited to just a select few but instead as a need for everyone. It is a humbling experience to admit that we are not perfect.

Each of us, regardless of our fiscal worth, or our efforts to do the good and avoid the bad; no matter how physically fit we are or how much education we have, if we are to be honest, we must admit that we are not perfect. Even more significantly, in Lent we admit that we can do no good outside of God’s help. Most of us like to think that we can do a lot of good in this world, but the themes of Lent are there to remind us that God is the force for good. The themes of Lent do not stop there.

Through the music, the scripture readings, the meditations and prayers, we are also led to confront our mortality. When the ashes are imposed on the forehead of the worshipper on Ash Wednesday, it is typical for the leader to say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

While I imagine that many of us would not find it difficult to admit to our imperfections, or that we need God’s help to do good, it is something more to contend with our mortality. Indeed, if it weren’t for the hope that Christians hold in the coming celebration of Easter, this Lenten practice could seem a bit depressing. Instead, it is a time to remember that we have come from the earth and will return to it one day.

Acknowledging this reality has a profound affect on how we live our lives—encouraging us to cherish life as a gift and not to take it for granted. For me personally, I have also found it to be a good ego adjustment--to not take myself more seriously than I should.

There are certainly other important themes presented in Lent. One thing that they all have in common is that they lead to the realization that we do not live autonomously or by our own devices, but instead our lives find their basis and sustainment from God and are contingent on the support of others.

Another way of saying it is that we find that we need others to make sense of our lives and to continue living. This is a primary basis for the chapel and church communities that gather weekly for worship.

Each year we consider these themes which find their expression in the narrative of the gospel story. It’s a story that begins at the cross of Christ and ends in his empty tomb. This, in a nutshell, is the story of the paschal mystery. To experience this story is to understand Easter.

So as people contend with the observations of the Lenten season, perhaps by attending church or chapel services, perhaps with fasting and prayer, we can take encouragement in the thought that they are apart of a community that is journeying towards the hope and vitality that they find on Easter morning, and that for them the journey is worth the reward.