Saturday Read: Preparing for Lent
In four days, Ash Wednesday begins the Lenten season - forty days (excluding Sundays) of preparation leading to Easter. The practice dates to the early church, when new converts would spend forty days in intensive preparation for baptism at Easter. Eventually, the whole church joined them in this season of fasting, prayer, and repentance, creating a communal rhythm of returning to God.
The number forty carries biblical weight. Noah's flood lasted forty days. Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the Law. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness. Elijah fasted forty days before encountering God. Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness before beginning his ministry. Forty represents a complete period of testing, preparation, and transformation - long enough to be genuinely difficult but not so long it's impossible.
Modern culture has little patience for forty-day anything. We want instant transformation, microwave spirituality, fast-food faith. Forty days feels impossibly long when we expect breakthrough in forty minutes. But some transformations can't be rushed. Character isn't formed overnight. Habits aren't broken in a weekend. Deep repentance requires time.
Jesus's forty days in the wilderness prepared him for ministry by testing what he believed about his identity. Satan tempted him three times, each time questioning who Jesus was: "If you are the Son of God..." (Matthew 4:3, 6). The wilderness forced Jesus to decide what kind of Messiah he would be - one who used divine power for personal comfort, one who manipulated God through spectacular displays, or one who rejected shortcuts to glory and embraced the cross.
Lent serves a similar purpose for Christians. It's forty days to test what you actually believe versus what you claim to believe. It's preparation for Easter by walking toward the cross, not around it. It's intentional discomfort that reveals what you're really trusting in - God or the comforts you've made functional saviors.
Traditional Lenten practices include fasting (giving up something), almsgiving (giving to others), and prayer (drawing near to God). Together, these practices address three relationships: with yourself (fasting), with others (almsgiving), and with God (prayer). You can't love God while ignoring your neighbor or neglecting your own soul. Lent addresses all three.
But Lent can become performance - rules to follow, boxes to check, external actions divorced from internal transformation. This is what God condemned through Joel: "Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments" (Joel 2:12-13). Tearing garments was the external sign of repentance. God wanted the internal reality - torn hearts, not torn clothes.
So as Lent approaches, ask yourself: what's one thing I've made more important than God? What comfort have I elevated to necessity? What habit has become an addiction? What distraction keeps me from God's presence? Lent isn't about proving your willpower or earning God's favor. It's about removing obstacles to intimacy with him and examining what you're really trusting in.
The goal isn't suffering for suffering's sake. The goal is preparation for Easter - training your heart to rejoice more deeply in resurrection by first walking honestly through death. You can't appreciate the empty tomb if you haven't stood at the cross. You can't celebrate victory if you haven't acknowledged defeat. Lent prepares you to receive Easter's joy by making you honest about the sin that required it.
