To have a bigger Easter, observe a deeper Lent

Lent is the Christian Church’s 40-day liturgical season in preparation for Easter. We’re almost halfway there. How do you observe Lent?

Please don’t trivialize Lent by “giving up stuff …” that you don’t like, and adding fish on Fridays, which I do like! That kind of going-through-themotions practice can far too easily lead to a similar sleepwalking right into Easter’s promise, perhaps missing it entirely.

Or, even worse, it’s a feeble attempt to prove that, by working hard, we can earn — and deserve — the sacrifice and remarkable transformation of Easter.

If Easter is just our annual commemoration of a one time, long ago, miraculous religious event, with eggs and bunnies and new hats and the family over for dinner, with “attendance required” at Easter’s longer-than-usual church service, then a simple mechanical Lent might be adequate ... a combination of Ground Hog Day, Presidents’ Day and Thanksgiving rolled into one.

But if Easter is a hint of lifechanging gifts yet to come, of radical transformational paradigm shifts, then safe little Lenten rituals — covering phony deprivation with a cloak of contrition — simply will not do.

To prepare for a bigger Easter, we need a bigger, deeper, wider Lent. There’s still time to be more profound and playful. Playful? Yes, please. Enough of gloomy Christians. We Presbyterians especially are very good at a grumpy Lent and seem to live Lent and its dour contrition all year long. We take a peculiar pride in being “grumpier than thou.” I’m a mostly “recovering Presbyterian” and have traded