At first I thought it was just me. But yesterday I received an email from a friend who wished me greetings in this ‘longest Lent’. In a regularly scheduled Monday meeting I remarked to my colleagues that this Lent has seemed longer than its 40 days. And we still have nearly two weeks to go before Easter. For me, this particular Lent has brought with it the feeling of moving through mud. Except the mud is ice. And snow. And cold. And there does not seem to be any end in sight.

The word Lent itself is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words lencten, meaning “Spring,” and lenctentid, which means not only “Springtide” but also was the word for “March,” the month in which the majority of Lent falls. Like most of our seasons and holy days in the church, they were layered over the rituals and celebrations of people who lived more closely to the earth than we now do. The early church fathers, and they were, found it easier to layer Christian meaning and intentions over these already long-held days of importance to the people. The hope was that over time the less prescribed celebrations would fall away and purely Christian understanding as defined by the church would be what people remembered.

For the most part that has been true. It is only when someone asks the question: “Why is Easter celebrated on a different date every year?” that we move into these muddy….or icy…waters. It was the Council of Nicaea in 325 A. D. that set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the vernal (spring) equinox. The full moon of March, if you have checked, falls next Wednesday the 27th and today is the spring equinox. This makes the celebration of Easter fall on March 31st. Got it?

I have thought all week about how we in the Christian household somehow live in both the world created for us as the church and with the ancient memory of those who came before. Both were, are, filled with a sense of the Mystery we have formed into a faith tradition and story. As we live the days of Lent, following in the path-story of Jesus, we also are living at some level the deep longing for the season we call spring. Both stories tell of the new life that comes out of the places that are dead. They are the stories that combine to make our spiritual DNA.

So in that case, it has been the longest Lent. While we are about to open once again the triumphant story of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem this Sunday, signs of the long awaited spring are no where in sight. We will wave our palm fronds but that will be the only green that graces our worldview. It is a pretty good bet that come Easter Sunday snow will still be covering any ground where colorful eggs might be hidden.

I am reminded of the Natalie Sleeth song that has become a favorite to many:

“In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed, an apple tree,
In cocoons, a hidden promise, butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”</strong>