What the Bible Says About Lent

Lent is the season of roughly forty days in which many Christians prepare for Easter through repentance, prayer, fasting, and renewed devotion to God. While the word "Lent" does not appear in Scripture, its practices are deeply biblical, drawing on the call of the prophet Joel: "Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning" (Joel 2:12). Lent is fundamentally a return of the whole heart to God. The forty-day shape of Lent echoes the fast of Jesus in the wilderness. After his baptism, "he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry" (Matthew 4:2), facing temptation and overcoming it by the word of God. Lent invites believers to walk that same road of self-denial, leaning on Scripture rather than appetite. Jesus assumed his followers would fast, warning, "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do" (Matthew 6:16), and teaching instead, "put oil on your head and wash your face" (Matthew 6:17), so that fasting is offered to God and not to win human praise. Jesus also explained that fasting belongs to the time of his physical absence: "The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast" (Luke 5:35). Lenten fasting therefore expresses longing for Christ and hope in his return. The aim is never mere ritual but genuine transformation, for "godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret" (2 Corinthians 7:10). As we humble ourselves, we trust the promise, "Come near to God and he will come near to you" (James 4:8). Observed rightly, Lent is not a season of empty self-punishment but a grace-filled journey toward the cross and the joy of the resurrection.