Rejoice! It's Lent. Sounds strange doesn't it? Joy and Lent just do not seem to go together. Lent is the somber season. In popular practice Lent possesses all the marks of a six-week funeral. The paraments are the deep purple of a dowager's dress. Hallelujahs are silenced within the service of the liturgy. Social celebrations are cancelled - or at least curtailed. Our attention is focused exclusively on the crucified body of a young man dying in agony on a criminal's cross. Our emotions are moved to tears by such words as suffering, sacrifice, passion, and death. All of this emphasis on the cross is intended to drive us to repentance and to acts of fasting.

This Lenten emphasis on the death and suffering of our Lord is not only a distortion of the biblical witness and the practice of the pr…