There are different ways to measure the height of a mountain. It is typical to list the elevation above sea level. By this measure, Mt Everest, at 8848 meters (29,029 ft), is clearly “the rooftop of the world”. However, if you measure from base to peak, other mountains are taller. Everest emerges from the already very high Tibetan Plateau, and from base to peak is a mere 4000 meters or 13000 feet (of course, this is still pretty impressive!). Mt. Denali (formerly McKinley) in Alaska beats this with a base to peak height of about 5500 meters (18,000 feet).
Today, many churches celebrate Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a Christian observance that dates to around 325 or so. The season of Lent, like many of the Christian observances we know and love, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Bible. Previous to this, the early Christians mainly just celebrated Easter. Easter, spiritually speaking, is Christianity’s Mt. Everest. This is the highest height, and the greatest summit for us this side of Eternity. Easter heralds the ultimate victory of Christ over death, and the triumph of Good over Evil. We glow as the risen and glorified Jesus says, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age”.
How do we do justice to something like Easter, when we remember it in our hearts and meditate upon its meaning? How do we do it justice in our yearly cycle of celebration? What could we do to make something that spectacularly good even just a little bit more special? What I take to be the genius of Lent is that it is a human attempt to make the Easter commemorations even more grand by deepening the depths from which our Himalayan summit rises, thereby creating a larger base-to-peak journey. We descend to the deepest depths and darkest darkness before emerging blinking into the blazing glory of Easter.
How do we do this? Lent begins with the admonition that recalls our mortality: “Remember, O man, that dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.” Many Christians observe a season of fasting, or abstaining from certain foods or beverages. You can read more about fasting here. Many Christians delve into exercises of spiritual disciplines, such as bible study. Some will try to do more acts of charity.
However you choose to prepare for Easter, I commend to you the season of Lent as a time of prayer, penitence, reflection, and discipline. By scooping out a deeper valley, Lent helps Easter rise that much more gloriously ahead of us.