3 Reasons to Observe Lent
Editor’s Note: Lent is a season on the church calendar set aside for preparing our hearts for Easter, much like Advent is for Christmas. It kicks off each year on Ash Wednesday and traditionally runs 40 days (not counting sabbaths), corresponding to Jesus’ 40 days spent in the wilderness. Lent often involves concentrated times of prayer, personal confession, and fasting—giving something up in order to remember Christ giving himself for us. This article explores how observing Lent can be a helpful means of deepening our dependence on and devotion to Christ as we look forward to celebrating the victory of the gospel in his resurrection. Check out some prompts at the end for incorporating these practices into your own life!
My office sometimes serves as hospice care for discarded house plants—the ones my wife tosses into the garbage when they are only mostly dead. One day, in a particularly cruel mood, she set a corn plant that was “struggling” in the garage near the bin. It’s been in my office dying with dignity ever since. At first, I had hopes of saving it. But it is dying. I have kept it as a reminder of things that I can’t control.
There are a lot of things I can’t control. A friend recently reminded me to stop worrying about the “O Zone”—outcomes, others, and old things. The one that bothers me is outcomes. Like with my plants, I want to control the outcomes.
I can only imagine the fear that the people of Israel must have felt journeying into the arid wilderness of Sinai without knowing the outcome—like where they would find food or water. Exodus 16:3 can sound like a petulant child: “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” But these were grown adults talking, not my 9-year-old. They had legitimate concerns. How would they feed their children?
And yet, their grumbling revealed a doubt that God can be trusted. This was at the root of the original sin in the Garden of Eden as well. We all wrestle with doubts like these at times. Maybe dependence on God will let us down? Perhaps we need to take control?
Receiving Repentance
The observance of Lent—the forty days leading up to Easter—is a spiritual practice to help reframe these doubts. We’re all wired with these habits of self-will, or control, and we need repentance. That’s the first reason why Lent can be helpful. Lent helps us examine not just bad actions but every corner of life: our affections, motivations, relationships, habits, and more.
The book of Matthew presents Jesus as the ideal Israelite who relives Jewish history but does it faithfully. He is saved from among dying male infants, brought up out of Egypt to go into the wilderness where he encounters a person who warns Israel against vipers, brought through the waters of baptism where he is declared the beloved Son, only to be led into the wilderness for a period of forty days before going up a mountain to reframe the law. Lent remembers this time of fasting and temptation Jesus endured.
The temptations during these forty days are themselves a rehearsal of Israel’s major snares: Will God provide food for us? Is God better than the splendor and glory of this world? Will he protect us?
During those forty days, the tempter first enticed Jesus to command stones to become bread. In his response, Jesus cited Deuteronomy 8:3. Here is that verse with context:
[The LORD your God] humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Like Israel, Jesus was tempted to seize control of the situation, to abandon intimacy with the Father. Unlike Israel, he did not choose independence. By fasting, he received hunger as a tutor. Hunger taught him dependence under bodily stress. He still felt the pains, but they were a reminder of the source of daily bread.
Receiving Creation
The second reason for observing Lent is that creation is good. If it were not, we would not abstain for a season; we would renounce created things altogether. Since creation is good, the gifts that we receive from our heavenly father are good. As in Eden, where trees were given to delight all the senses, so east of Eden, we still experience its echoes.
Lent teaches us to have joy in receiving by a temporary abstaining. Just as the curse on creation was “in hope” (Rom. 8:20), so also abstaining from created things is done in hope for their joyful reception. It is for this reason that Lent has been called a “bright sadness.”[1] Both remembered joys and future joys are deepened by allowing room for sadness and longing. We abstain in order to receive with gladness.
Receiving the Gospel
And finally, the third reason for observing Lent is that it can be an act of faith in the work of Jesus. Notice the difference between Jesus’s experience in the wilderness and our Lenten observance. For Jesus, the forty days were in preparation to give. For us, they are a tutor in how to receive. The created gifts we forgo only point to the giver of life. Not only was creation put under the curse and darkness but our own selves. Only by Jesus’ faithfulness in the wilderness are we made righteous. Only his death could give us life.
Lent observance can be an observance of faith when it looks to the resurrection of Jesus as our ultimate hope. It can be an expression of the darkness of our own souls as we look to the dawning of Easter. Lent reminds us that we are dying, like my office plant is, but also, that he will raise us to be with him. Our life is in him. And when Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:4).
[1] Schmemann, Alexander. Great Lent. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974.
Putting It into Practice
Here are a few ideas and further resources gathered by the R|M team to help you think through the observance of Lent in your own life!
Take an intentional 40-day fast from something you enjoy or do regularly (maybe it’s social media or dessert or a leisure activity) and use that time and those “cravings” as a prompt to examine your heart and seek the Lord. You could even incorporate an appropriate length of fasting from food altogether during these weeks. Some families also choose to fast from something together for six days each week and break on the sabbath as a means of remembering God’s grace within our need. Click here for more on fasting.
Brainstorm a special giving project that you and your kids can be a part of together—perhaps sacrificing your free time, saved-up money, or something else as a family in order to serve a missionary, neighbor, or person in need, as Christ has served us.
Consider setting aside extra time to work through a related book or devotional. Find some ideas here.
Weave discussion about Jesus’ death into conversations with your kids. Check out these helpful tips!
Create a 40-day countdown as a family and incorporate some biblical readings on Christ’s suffering and our need for his forgiveness. Two easy ideas (Cradle-to-Cross wreath and Paper Chain) are linked in our Lent resources here.
