Lent FAQ
Published February 2020
What is it and why does it matter?
A heart posture of contrition and repentance toward God is essential to the Christian faith. While this posture is meant to be consistently evident in our lives, the season of Lent provides an annual context during which we intentionally and corporately pursue repentant lives with not only our hearts, but also our bodies. A season to consider our creaturely dependence and pervasive brokenness develops in us a renewed pursuit of repentance and practice of discipline.
Lent originally served as a period for baptismal instruction of new believers, to be baptized on Easter Sunday. Over time, the entire church began to engage the Lenten season by exploring and deepening a “baptismal spirituality” that focuses on repentance from sin and our union with Christ. For the past 1500 years, Christians worldwide have recognized Lent through fasting and intentional simplicity, considering our mortality and preparing our hearts to wonder at the beauty of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In the fourth century, the church decided to correlate Lent with Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness (Matt 4:2). This forty-day period begins on Ash Wednesday and continues through Holy Week, not counting Sundays (which serve as “mini-Easters” leading up to Easter Sunday). The purpose of Ash Wednesday is threefold: to consider our mortality, sinfulness, and need for a Savior; to renew our commitment to a lifestyle of repentance, and to remember with gratitude the reality that Jesus has conquered sin and death on our behalf. The imposition of the ashes serves as a reminder of our frailty (Gen 18:27), God’s judgment (Lam 3:16), and the mourning that drives us to hope in God’s salvation (Est 4:3).
What should we do?
...as a church family
We will begin the season of Lent on February 17th.
Lent leads us first to Palm Sunday, where we remember Christs’ triumphal entry. During Holy Week (the final week leading up to Easter), we encourage our City Groups to gather for Maundy Thursday to celebrate the night that Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, gave final instructions, and washed his disciples’ feet.
We will also have Good Friday services in which we will allow the scriptures to take us to the scene of our Lord’s betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial. On Saturday, we sit in the reality of Christ’s death, setting us up for a deep celebration of Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday.
...personally and with family and friends
As individuals, families, and groups of friends, we encourage you to put some thought into how you might observe Lent through fasting and discipline. The goal of fasting is to identify something in your life that you tend to use as a means to avoid feeling deeply or facing reality. This might be certain types of food or drink, social media, alcohol, Netflix, or anything else to which you find yourself turning for distraction or self-medication.
Since every Sunday is a resurrection feast for Christians, you might suspend your fast on Sundays. Or, if a 40-day fast is intimidating to you, you might choose only one day each week to abstain. The point is to cultivate a hunger for God by taking away something in our lives that’s not necessarily bad or sinful, but might be satisfying us in a superficial way where God wants to satisfy our souls deeply. For families and groups of friends, this can lead to great conversation as the season progresses about how we are each experiencing the fast and how God is working in each of us.
You might also consider engaging in a particular discipline to cultivate affections for and obedience to God. Some decide to engage in some kind of service to others, while others read through all the Psalms or memorize one of Paul’s shorter epistles. You could also read through a particular book such as A Hunger for God by John Piper or The Final Days of Jesus by Andreas Köstenberger and Justin Taylor.
Whatever ways you choose to observe the season of Lent, let’s aim together to cultivate deeper affections for the triune God and to practice our faith in such a way that he gets great glory and our city becomes a better place.
Check out this page for additional resources.