The Celebration of Pascha
The more interesting question really is, "Why do you make such a big deal about Pascha?" In many Protestant churches, the only things that set Easter apart from the other Sundays of the year are a larger attendance at service, a special drama production, lots of fancy new clothes, and maybe an Easter egg hunt after coffee hour. And it's all over. Others take the feast more seriously and attempt to honor its true meaning, perhaps observing Good Friday. But in the Orthodox Church, we take months to get ready for Pascha, our observances increasing in intensity as the day gets closer. On Pascha itself we go wild with joy, and we keep on celebrating until Ascension, forty days later. Why?

For the Orthodox Christian, the central fact of our faith is neither Christ's Birth nor His Crucifixion, but His Resurrection. The cradle and the cross are nothing without the empty tomb. As St. Paul wrote, "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (1 Corinthians 15:17). It is in His Resurrection that Christ has freed our fallen humanity from the curse of death. Through His Resurrection we are granted eternal life. What could be greater cause for rejoicing than that?

But the wisdom of the Church tells us that we cannot rejoice as the occasion demands unless we first have mourned for our sins. As Christ said of the woman who washed His feet with her tears, "Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little" (Luke 7:47). The truth is that we all have sinned and been forgiven much, but we are prone to forget this fact. For this reason we have Great Lent to remind us of our sinfulness and of how much we need God's forgiveness.

Great Lent, the primary element of our preparation for Pascha, consists of a forty-day period of fasting from certain foods and from worldly entertainments, accompanied by special services and an increased emphasis on prayer and almsgiving. As Lent is a spiritually intense time, the Church helps us to prepare ourselves for this also, through an emphasis on themes of repentance in the five Sundays leading up to Great Lent (often referred to as the Triodion).

Great Lent ends with Lazarus Saturday, when we commemorate Christ's raising of Lazarus from the dead-the foretaste and promise of His own Resurrection. Then comes Palm Sunday, when we shout Hosanna with the children as the King enters Jerusalem. These two days of joy allow us to catch our breath and prepare for the intense effort of Holy Week, the week leading up to Pascha.

Now the focus shifts from mourning for our own sins to accompanying Our Lord through the final days of His life on earth. Especially from Holy Thursday on, it seems as if we never leave the church as we commemorate each of the events of Christ's Passion with prayer and intensified fasting. People take time off from work and school as much as possible, and St. Lawrence Academy classes are dismissed. Ordinary time and activities fade into unreality as we celebrate the Lord's Supper with His disciples, watch with Him in Gethsemane, follow Him through His trials before the Sanhedrin, Pilate, and Herod, see Him mocked and scourged and hung upon the Cross, take His body (a near-life-size icon) down from the Cross and lay it on a flower-strewn bier, and watch over it as He descends into Hades to free those held captive to death.