Lent is the period of 40 days which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebrations of Easter. By observing the 40 days of Lent, Christians replicate Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. Lent is marked by prayer, fasting, repentance and abstinence during which Christians work to grow closer to God.
Whereas Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus after his death on the cross. Lent recalls the events leading up to and including Jesus’s crucification.
Forty is a significant number in Jewish-Christian scripture. In Genesis, the flood which destroyed the earth was brought about by 40 days and nights of rain. The Hebrews spent 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the land promised to them by God. Moses fasted for 40 days before receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry.
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent for Christians. It’s a day of penitence to clean the soul before the Lent fast. On this day churches hold special services at which churchgoers are marked on the forehead with a cross of ashes as a sign of penitence and mortality. The use of ashes, made by burning palm crosses from previous Palm Sunday, is very symbolic. The priest marks each worshipper on the forehead, and says ‘remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return’ based on God’s sentence on Adam in Genesis 3:19.
The marking of their forehead with a cross made of ashes reminds each churchgoer that: death comes to everyone, they should be sad for their sins, they must change themselves for the better, God made the first human being by breathing life into dust, and without God, human beings are nothing more than dust and ashes.
Palm Sunday is the final Sunday of Lent, the beginning of Holy Week, and commemorates the triumphant arrival of Christ in Jerusalem, days before he was crucified. Palm Sunday is known as such because the faithful will often receive palm fronds which they use to participate in the re-enactment of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem. According to the Gospels, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a young donkey, and to the lavish praise of the townspeople who threw clothes or possibly palms or small branches, in front of him as a sign of homage. This was a customary practice for people of great respect. The use of donkey instead of a horse is highly symbolic. It represents the humble arrival of some one in peace, as opposed to arriving on a steed in war. A week later, Christ would rise from the dead on the first Easter.
Easter is a festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is celebrated on Sunday, and marks the end of Holy Week, the end of Lent, the last day of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday), and is the beginning of the Easter Season. As we know from the Gospels, Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day following his crucifixion, which would be Sunday. His resurrection marks the triumph of good over evil, sin and death.
