Observing Lent

We live our lives in seasons. Community life is ordered around national holidays and academic calendars. Nature cycles through summer, autumn, winter, and spring. 

The Church observes its own seasons, ordering each year around the life of Christ and the story of our redemption. The Christian calendar rhythms our spiritual lives around periods of expectation, fulfillment, and proclamation. 

In seasons of expectation like Advent and Lent, we wait. Advent yearns, expecting the incarnation of Christ. Lent repents, expecting the redemption of Christ. 

Lent was a time of deep spiritual formation for the early church. New believers prepared for baptism on Easter Sunday, while the entire church practiced spiritual disciplines in humility and reflection. 

The tradition of fasting during Lent rose as a rhythm of observance, imprinting the purpose of the season on believers even as they carried on with daily routines in their homes and workplaces. Lent continues for 40 days, from Ash Wednesday, March 5, through Holy Saturday, April 19, the day before Easter. Lenten expectancy is kept Monday through Saturday each week. The Sundays that occur during this period are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. 

Year-round, each Lord’s Day, we remember our Triune God as the author of creation, the hope in our fall, the source of our redemption, and the restorer of His kingdom. During the season of Lent, especially, Sundays rise in a slow crescendo that climaxes on Easter morning when we cry, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!”