The Season of Lent

What Is Lent?

For more than a thousand years, Christians have placed a special emphasis on discipleship and repentance during the weeks that precede our celebration of Jesus’s resurrection. This time of emphasis has become known as the season of Lent. The word “Lent,” basically means “springtime” and comes from an Old English word referring to the lengthening of the daytime that occurs before Easter.

Like the Advent season, actions associated with Lent include fasting, prayer, and giving to those in need. In Matthew 6, Jesus addresses each of these acts of devotion during his Sermon on the Mount. While fasting, prayer, and giving are all Scriptural practices, Lent is a tradition, not a biblical ordinance, and so no Christian should feel compelled or guilty for not observing the season of Lent.

For those who do wish to observe the special emphasis of this season, you may want to spend this week asking God to guide you in the specific way that you will participate. You may use the Private and Family Worship section of our weekly Worship Guide as well as the various sections in the order of worship to structure your prayer during this season. You may consider setting aside contributions during this season to give to the Deacon’s Benevolence Fund and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for International Missions, which we collect on Resurrection Sunday.

However, caution is warranted when it comes to displaying our personal piety in public ways. Jesus warned his disciples against improper motives when performing these acts of devotion publicly. Jesus instructs his disciples against appearing devout and pious simply to gain praise and recognition from others. He teaches his disciples instead to seek the praise and recognition of our Father who is in heaven. The season of Lent is characterized by a spirit of repentance and utter dependence upon God, but this spirit can easily be undermined when the purpose of our participation is to be seen by others or to demonstrate our own spiritual maturity.

How Do We Observe Lent?

Lent begins on the seventh Wednesday before Easter—Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of sprinkling or rubbing ashes on the forehead. Ashes are a symbol of repentance, and they remind the Christian of the frailty of our fallen nature. On Ash Wednesday, many Christians begin a season of 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Prayer

For many Christians, prayer is a daily habit. During the season of Lent, however, the emphasis of our prayers is on asking God to expose the sin in our lives—revealing the sins that we hide from others and exposing the various ways that we sin without even thinking about it. A helpful prayer in this process is Psalm 139:23–24 (CSB):

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

The routine of regular prayer reminds us of our dependence on God. If you aren't in the habit of praying daily, you might try setting a reminder at the same time every day to pray that God would remind you of your daily sins and give you a spirit of godly sorrow and repentance. Ask him to show you how to avoid these sins and how to express your sorrow for them. A good time for this daily prayer is right as you get out of bed in the morning or lie down to sleep at night. If you are already in the habit of daily prayer, you might consider one of these routines during Lent:

• 2x/day (1 Chronicles 23:30): getting out of bed in the morning and lying down to sleep

• 3x/day (Psalm 55:17; Daniel 6:10): add a noon-time prayer to the two above

• 5x/day: add a morning prayer and an evening prayer to the three above. These morning and evening prayers are a great opportunity to pray together as a family if you have a spouse or children. Psalm 119:164 even talks about praying 7 times a day(!), but start slowly. The point is not to pray as much as possible but to develop a routine habit of prayer.

Fasting

In the broadest sense, a fast is a pause in consumption or enjoyment for a specific amount of time. Many Christians practice different kinds of fasts during Lent. And while there may be "traditional" ways of fasting during Lent, there aren't any strict rules that you have to abide by. Remember, Lenten fasts are a tradition, not a command. You can observe Lent without fasting at all. The point of the fast is to feel our weakness as a reminder of how dependent we are on God. In light of this, a Lenten fast usually involves an activity that we are used to, something that we will really feel when we stop. At the same time, the Lenten fast is usually broken each Sunday in celebration of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. In this way, it is best to choose a fast that you can break with a clear conscience. Lent is not the time to try and kick a bad habit—at least not as part of your fast. It doesn't make much sense to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus by indulging in a bad habit. Lenten fasts can be general or specific. In a general fast, Christians fast from all food from sunrise to sunset. Some Christians also restrict what they eat when they break their fast at sunset. In a specific fast, a Christian will choose one particular activity from which to abstain all week (until Sunday). Some examples of a specific fast include giving up chocolate or other sweets, coffee, meat, watching television, or using social media. Again, the goal is to choose a fast that you will feel daily and that reminds you of your own weakness and dependence upon God.

Almsgiving

Almsgiving is the regular practice of giving to those in need. Though this usually refers to giving money to the poor, other forms of almsgiving. Money can be given to charities or disaster relief or even missions organizations. Many Christians combine these three Lenten disciplines by using the time they would be eating (or watching TV, or using social media, etc.) to instead spend time in prayer and then give the cost of that meal to someone in need. If you decide to fast a meal, consider setting aside the cost of the meal you're fasting to be given to those in need. Alternatively, you could set aside a certain percentage of your income during Lent. You could also set aside a specific amount of money each day Monday thru Saturday and then give this money on Sunday. When you set aside whatever money you chose, consider actually taking the time to grab the money and put it in a specific jar, envelope, or something else. Actually going through the motions of taking tangible money and physically setting it aside helps us to be conscious and thoughtful about what we are doing.

A Few Reminders

If you're going to be imposing rules upon yourself during Lent, then these are some of the most important to keep in mind:

1. Don't broadcast (much less brag about) your Lenten practices.

Remember Jesus's warning in Matthew 6:1–18. Those who perform acts of devotion to be seen by others will be ignored by God.

2. Make sure your fast benefits others.

Consider the words of Isaiah 58:5–7 (CSB):

Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood?

Isaiah reminds us that external actions are worthless if they don't correspond to an inward desire for holiness and righteousness. If you save yourself $10 by not eating a meal, then you're $10 richer. But if you give that $10 to someone in need, then you store up treasure in heaven. Our fast should be a blessing to others. Likewise, if you choose to fast a meal or something like coffee, and the result is that you're regularly in a bad mood, then you're making others around you suffer. Make sure your fast is a benefit rather than a burden to others.

3. Remember the gospel.

One of the pitfalls of Lent—and of spiritual disciplines in general—is that we have a tendency to view them as transactional. We think that God will be happier with us if we pray or fast or give. And we think that he will be disappointed in us if we do not. This is a hard truth to learn, but practicing disciplines without it will damage your soul: your disciplines have no effect whatsoever on how God sees you. Succeeding doesn’t make God proud of you and failing doesn't make God disappointed in you. God is no more impressed with the Christian who observes Lent than the one who ignores it. He is no more impressed with the Christian who keeps his fast than with the one who breaks it. God's satisfaction with you has absolutely nothing to do with his love for you. God's love for you is secure in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are in God's love. You can't increase it and you can't decrease it. You're either in Christ or you are not. Don't let your own disappointment with yourself control how you think God sees you.