By Jeff Cranston

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “lent”? For me, I basically only and ever associated Lent as an Ash Wednesday service, where I would sometimes see one or two of my friends walking around that day with a dark-smeared cross on their forehead.

But, honestly, I never really gave Lent much of any thought at all. I come from a Christian tradition where Lent was never talked about, much less observed. I always thought, “Well, that’s something Catholics do, or Lutherans, or Methodists. It seems important to them, but that’s not something I do.”

And as I’ve gotten older and have continued to study the faith that we hold so dear, I’ve come to realize that there are some things that we don’t do as a church that maybe we ought to consider doing. I’m not talking about changing the basic tenets of our faith or anything like that, but I wonder if there are not some practices or disciplines that we could incorporate.

What is Lent?

Basically, Lent is the 40 days (not including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter, used as a time for personal reflection that prepares people’s hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter.

Where did Lent come from?

A lot of Christians see hints of it very early in church history. There was a man named Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, not long after Christ walked the earth. He didn’t mention Lent by name, but he did refer to a particular season in which Christians would fast and pray.

Fast forward to the fourth century and the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. This was a particularly important church council. From this council meeting, it was determined when Christians would celebrate Easter. They also developed what we refer to as the Nicene Creed, a statement of Christian beliefs that churches have been reciting ever since that time. And also, they mentioned Lent specifically.

So, Lent has been around that long, celebrated and observed by Christians of various denominations and locations around the world. It’s morphed over time, but it’s always been centered around the 40 days before Easter and focused on fasting, prayer and repentance.

Think about Lent this way: Lent is preparation for Easter. It’s meant to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection when He defeated sin and death as the Savior of the world! So why would we spend the 40 days leading up to Easter fasting and praying and being penitent? Consider the Ash Wednesday service. Often, when the minister places that ashy cross on your forehead, he will say something to you along these lines: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust, you shall return.”  This is a gut-wrenching reminder of our frailty, brokenness and sin. And we reflect upon that prior to Easter. Imagine how beautiful and powerful the reality of Easter could be for you this year when you have spent the preceding 40 days considering your own sin and weakness. The awesome deliverance of Christ Jesus for you and your sins just might be more real to you this year than any other if you will engage in this rhythm of Lent.

Forty days was often used by God throughout Scripture to get the hearts and minds of His people focused upon Him. And if we’ll spend that amount of time wrestling, and living with, and feeling the weight of our need of God’s grace, wrestling with the parts of us we’d rather not think about—the parts we certainly don’t want others to see—then Easter takes on a particular brilliance when we get there.

During the Lenten season, opportunity is provided to practice allowing God access to all the ways we fail. This season of repentance invites God to examine our hearts and slows us down enough to hear Him reveal those dark places that need His light.

Psalm 51 is a model to us of how repentance sounds. It was written by David after Nathan confronted him about his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah (see 2 Samuel 12). Psalm 51 is the poetry of a person who is keenly aware of his failings and need for God’s intervention.

Repentance, as David shows us, is a deliberate act on our part to be humble, to seek forgiveness, to turn from the sin that we are entangled in, and to live in God’s empowerment over sin through the Holy Spirit.

Repentance helps us counter our tendency toward unchecked sin and self-righteousness. It should be a common practice of the Christian—not only during Lent but all through the year. Repentance does not negate earthly consequence—David’s sin had devastating consequences (see 2 Samuel 12:15–19)—but repentance does free us from the spiritual consequences of our sin. We are brought into right relationship with God again.

How can you make Lent a meaningful rhythm in your life?

People often give up something for Lent, and that may be a good idea. But make it meaningful. Someone might say, “I’m giving up peanut M&M’s because I really love peanut M&M’s.” Well, that misses the point here. That’s not really preparing the heart for Easter. Don’t use Lent as an excuse for some fad diet. But maybe there is something that you could excise from your life over these 40 days that when you do it, it may help you prepare your heart for Easter? What if you used Lent as a time to lean in closer to Jesus and allowed Him to expose and clear out and cleanse? What if you could use this time to surrender and ask God to remove stuff that doesn’t belong there?

And Lent certainly shouldn’t only be about removing stuff from our lives. It can also be about adding some key things. Maybe over these next 40 days, you can establish some new rhythms in prayer or reading God’s Word. I want to challenge you with this question: What is one thing you can do during these next 40 days to better prepare your heart to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus?

Jeff Cranston is the lead pastor of LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton, South Carolina.

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