Saturday, March 28, 1998

Peeling away the layers of the Lenten season

By KELLY PIGOTT / Guest Columnist

"Throw me something mister!" I yelled at the top of my ten-year-old voice.

A guy dressed in silky-looking purple, green, and gold pajamas (something one would never wear in public in Texas) standing on a parade float tossed a handful of doubloons in my direction.

I heard the chorus of high-pitched zings as the gold coins left his hands and spilled out into the air, eventually clinging and clanging on the pavement around me. It was the most coveted sound in all of Mardi Gras.

Kids and adults immediately converged on the spot, slamming their feet down on the booty, and with tightly clenched fists, reached down and claimed the prizes that lay under their shoes. (I learned very early never to pick up a doubloon with just your hand after an adult unapologetically slammed his foot on my fingers.) This time I managed to grab a rare purple doubloon.

It's gone now. Mom probably threw it away a long time ago. But the memory of Mardi Gras parades still remains, as well as other vivid images of spring in south Louisiana.

For example, the day after Mardi Gras, lots of people walked around with grey plus signs on their foreheads. Every Friday the school served a play-dough tasting dish they called "fish." And then there came the Sunday when mom made us all dress up in stiff clothes that choked our necks.

She then dragged us to church. When we got home there would be a basket waiting for us, filled with jellybeans and chocolate eggs. I remember thinking it was our reward for having to endure church.

Little did I realize growing up that all of these images had something to do with what the church calls Lent, the 40 days before Easter when Christians traditionally have prepared themselves for the big party to take place on Easter.

The meaning and practices of Lent are layered with historical tradition and theology, so allow me to peel away the layers for you to help you understand their significance and show you how you can benefit from them today.

The first layer we need to understand is Easter. When Christians first started meeting together, every Sunday was like Easter to them. Not that they hid eggs and bought new clothes for church every weekend, but they just thought the idea of Jesus coming back from the dead was more exciting than even the Super Bowl or a Rolling Stones concert.

Eventually, however, they did pick one day out of the year to celebrate Easter. Think of it as a resurrection party, because it was an extremely joyful occasion.

But there were various traditions as to how and when one threw this party. Christians who came from a Jewish background continued to celebrate Easter around the Passover, on a Thursday evening.

Gentile Christians who had grown up in the church insisted that Easter be celebrated on a Sunday. Finally, as more and more pagans became Christians, they wanted to do something on March 21, the first day of spring, because that's when they were used to going to big parties for various fertility gods. It therefore stood to reason (to them) to adopt March 21 as the day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Eventually the church fathers decided to come up with a single plan. However, unifying all the various traditions turned out to be a big deal because traditions, by definition, don't like to be changed.

I know this may be hard to believe, but those Christians were so emotional about their version of the resurrection party that when they got together to work out a compromise they would get in fistfights. This bothered the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Not that he didn't like a good fight, but he thought that fighting should be reserved for virtuous things, like power and accumulating wealth, and not for silly things like what day to throw a resurrection party.

So he called a big meeting, called the Council of Nicea, to settle this, among other matters, once and for all. Here is what they came up with: From then on, Easter was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring (the vernal equinox) Whew!

This ended up being so confusing that everyone went home thinking they had won. By the way, this way of dating Easter is still confusing people today.

Finally deciding on a date to celebrate Easter only represents the first layer we've peeled away, though.

Next week, we'll talk about the other two: Lent and Holy Week (The Rev. Kelly Pigott is pastor of SpringBrooke Church, which meets in the Paramount Theater.)