Seeking a more biblical Lent
A guide to Lenten practices from a pastor who is tired of giving stuff up
Matthew 6:2-8, 16-18
“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The season of Lent is nearly upon us. May I be the first to joyfully remind you that yes, you too shall die. Welcome to the club of mortals!
In the church world, the transition to Lent means a lot of things. Midweek services are back. We stop singing ‘Alleluia’ during worship. Friday fish fries begin, which are promptly followed by Friday night laundry. Pastors bring out their purple stoles to match the paraments on the altar and pulpit. And, as if we could forget one of the biggest hallmarks of the season, Christians around the world decide what to give up for 40 days—and, maybe even more importantly, choose whether Sundays count.
I personally have a long history with the Lenten practices. Personality-wise, it fits me like a glove. I love a good rule to follow and am always up for a challenge. For fellow StrengthsFinder nerds, I’m a Top 5 Developer, which means I thrive off of having a period of time to be more intentional about the way I can grow in and engage my faith. I also genuinely love trying out new spiritual practices and thinking through ways to bring faith into my everyday.
In middle and high school, this looked like what it often looks like for people. I gave up the standard sugary delights of ice cream and chocolate, gorging myself on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) with my dad in hopes that it would sustain us over the coming weeks of sugar-less life. In college, I began to branch out from diet culture by deciding to spend three hours in silence every day and even gave up listening to music altogether in hopes of creating more space for silence in my life.
Over the years, I have also learned that adding something to my life is just as important and transformative as subtracting something. To this end, I spent one Lent praying the rosary every day (even though I’m not Catholic), tried (and failed) to pray five times a day, and have journaled my way through two 40-Day Journeys.1 Last year, I spent much of Lent writing letters to my body, thanking her for all the ways she showed up for me over the course of the day. I have also tried to read some Lent-forward books with others in community.2
If it’s not obvious, I take this Lent thing very seriously.
Though increasingly, over the past couple of years, these Lenten practices of my past—practices of giving something up or adding something in—have felt shallow. Empty. Overwhelmingly simplistic. Missing the point.
During my reflection on how I wanted to spend the season this year, I realized that Lent had simply become another way for the world to impede it’s demanding, unrealistic, inhumane expectations on me, and that it used the church and spirituality as a mask to make me believe it’s actually good.
In essence—and I speak from personal experience—Lent has become a yearly lie I tell myself that we can, in fact, be better Christians and do better in the world and become more spiritual if we just try harder or journal more or give up sugar or whatever.
And friends, that’s just not true!
Nor is it faithful or Lutheran or helpful or biblical.
All this led me to be really honest with myself. To look at the human in the mirror—a woman who loves Lent and (unhealthily?) strives to enjoy Lent to the fullest—and clarify what my call as a Christian really is during this season.
Because when I’m honest, I’m reminded that Lent is a human-made idea. There is nothing about Lent in the Bible, nor is there mention of a period of time before Easter to mark our foreheads with ashes or give something up.3 These ideas and calendars and traditions came long after Jesus, and though they are integral parts of our Christian life together, they are not in scripture.
Jesus did not tell us to do them.
What is found in scripture are stories of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness for 40 days, and the saga of the Israelites wandering in Nowhere Land before making it to the Promised Land. There are passages like the one above in Matthew—most often read on Ash Wednesday—about fasting, almsgiving, and praying. There is Jesus reminding us of the greatest commandment, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
And, there is the story at the heart of our life of faith: a story of the God-in-flesh, dying and rising again. Over and over and over again in our scriptures, we hear the story of death and resurrection. Crucifixion and new life. A Love that overcomes it all.
Though Lent is not inherently biblical, it’s become clear to me that its goal is to point to these biblical stories that not just tell us about the crucified and risen God, but show us how this God continues to work in this way in our lives and the world. These 40 days offer us a set apart time to connect and engage with this paramount biblical story so that we might begin to see it as our own.
That’s the goal of Lenten practices. Not to have another stab at a new years’ resolution, try a new habit, or even get control over our sugar addictions. That’s what Lutherans would call “works righteousness,” and I’m not here for it anymore.
Rather, Lenten practices offer us time to wander in the wilderness with Jesus and the Israelites, and invite us into deeper life with God while out there.
They provide a time to rest in the unconditional love God already has for us, when the world around us keeps telling us to be better at x, y, and z.
They center us in the Truth that death does not have the final say, because it has been overcome by Love incarnate.
They aid us in opening our eyes to read scripture through a particularly unique and consequential lens—Christ crucified, died, and risen.
They prepare us for the climax of our Christian faith, the dawn of Easter morning.
This is what I want Lent to be about. This is what I want my Lenten practice to be about.
The stories in the Bible.
The story at the heart of our life of faith.
So, fellow Lenten-goers, if you are also seeking a more biblical Lent or failing to make sense of what to do during this season, I offer you four ways of engaging your faith in the coming season. Some of them are not new or my own, some are straightforward while others are more contemplative, but they all came from the place of my own yearning and longing for this season.
And most importantly, they point not to myself, but to the story of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.
Prayer + Fasting + Almsgiving
I can’t take credit for this one. It’s the standard Lenten protocol that comes directly from the Matthew text above. People often only focus on the fasting because it’s easiest to look at ourselves, but these three practices together provide a profound trifecta of connection with the Triune God and our neighbor:
Prayer connects us with our Creator, fasting connects us with ourselves, and almsgiving connects us with our neighbor.
If you take it with that intentionality, these practices can become a powerful way to not only look inward, but outward—the direction toward which our faith should always be pointing us.
Some questions for reflection:
🙏🏼 Prayer. How do you most deeply connect with God, your Creator? Maybe it’s listing people who need God’s love. Maybe it’s walking through a forest, surrounded by birdsong. For me, it’s spending time in focused breathing, as a reminder that God is closer to me than my own breath. How can you incorporate this into your the mundane of your life? Can you pray while washing dishes, listen to your footsteps as you talk a walk outside? Can you choose one prayer that you know or love deeply to pray every day during the season?4
🚫 Fasting. What is taking unnecessary time and energy away from your relationship with God and others? What part of your life do you hold on to tightly that might need to be let go? What or who might you be idolizing?
💸 Almsgiving. How are you stewarding your finances? In what ways can you give to a charity that is working to bring about God’s Kingdom in the world? It’s often easy for us to throw money at something and check off the box, but are you being led to do more? To show up in action? How can you spend your time in serving others?
❗️Remember, as Matthew reminds us, we don’t do these things to boast about ourselves, make us feel “better,” or to climb some invisible ladder to heaven, but to connect us to the God who sustains us in everything and lead us to love the neighbor.
Heart + Mind + Body
Jesus was pretty clear about these parts of ourselves when he gave us the greatest commandment, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” As I’ve written about before, this is far from easy.
My meditation app, Second Breath, uses ‘body’ instead of ‘soul,’ and in each meditation, they invite me to become grounded in my body, open my heart, and calm my mind. Over the years of becoming more away of these innate parts of my being, I realize just how essential they are. I’ve also learned how annoyingly easy it is for them to get sucked into the chaos of the world, and how frustratingly hard it is to love God with them.
Lent offers us a time to focus on the greatest commandment, realigning our three centers toward God, the God who claimed you in baptism, the God who offers you grace upon grace, the God who is trustworthy to care for your heart, soul, and mind. I also believe that when God is our God, the second greatest commandment—“to love your neighbor as yourself”—becomes a lot more automatic.
Some questions for reflection:
🫀 Heart. To what or to whom is your heart closed off? What practice would help God’s love and compassion flow to and through you? How do you experience God’s unconditional love for you? Who might you need to forgive? To whom do you need to ask for forgiveness? How can you use your heart to love God and love neighbor?
🧠 Mind. What are the stories that are consuming your mind? How are those stories shaping the ways you think about yourself, God, and others? What are you reading or watching that is morphing your thoughts in ways that are counter to the promises of scripture? How can you use your mind to love God and love neighbor?
🧘🏼♀️ Body. What is your body trying to communicate to you? It could be to eat less sugar, sure, but it could also be needing rest, Sabbath. Maybe it needs to move. Maybe it yearns to simply be present in the moment instead of trying to keep up with you. How is the Spirit speaking to you through your body, and how can you listen? How can you use your body to love God and love neighbor?
Each of these areas could include something added or subtracted. You could give up the news and instead spend that time reading a Psalm. You could give something up for your mind, and add something for your body. Be creative. Listen to how God is already speaking to you.
❗️But remember, whatever one chooses, the core of the practice is not about checking the thing off, creating a new habit, or being “better,” but about tuning our entire selves—body, mind, and spirit—toward the God of Israel, the God who came to be human with us in Jesus, the God whose love for us extends all the way to the cross.
Embrace the Physicality of Lent
Lent is an extremely bodily season. Holy Week itself is filled with mundane, yet powerfully human acts of eating around a table, washing feet, carrying a cross up a hill, being thirsty. Jesus’ entire ministry was physical—healing people with diseases and touching the untouchable—but it culminates in his final days when the God-in-flesh faces the depths of human suffering.
Our faith and traditions offer us ways to touch, sense, and feel the biblical story and God’s promises to us during this season.
🫓 Sacraments. The sacraments in the Lutheran tradition are physical, made up of the ordinary gifts of water, bread, and wine. You could spend the season remembering your baptism every morning in the shower.5 You could try to make it to more worship services and receive communion. These are the tangible ways God chose to be near us—receive them as gifts during this season.
☦️ Stations of the cross. These can be found in every Catholic church and at many retreat centers and monasteries. No matter what denomination you come from, walking through them can be a deeply spiritual practice and offer you time to read and reflect on the story of Jesus’ final hours. The stations are not inherently biblical, but they are a tool to get you into the biblical story, to aid you in taking time to reflect and ponder what this journey was like for Jesus. Get to know the story more deeply. Reflect on the art at each station. Connect each station with a moment in your own life.
🦶🏼 Wash feet. Jesus told us we ought to wash one another’s feet, as our Lord washed the disciples’ feet. Follow his command, kneel at the feet of your neighbor and touch them with love and compassion in the same way Jesus touched the feet of the disciples hours before his death.
🍽️ Fast. Like, literally fast. Spend a period of time every week not eating. This is what Jesus (unwillingly) did while in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil. A practice like this isn’t to “make us stronger”, and it certainly doesn’t come from a place of God wanting us to suffer for God’s sake. Instead, it provides a physical response to the spiritual longings we often ignore or are not in tune with. This can lead us deeper into prayer or help us recognize our need for God’s promises to us.
❗️Remember, these actions and behaviors are not sacrifices to God. They are ways to connect with the God who has already come to you, a God whose deepest desire is to be close to you, to touch you, to be near you. Feel God’s presence through this season through tangible, ordinary, physical ways.
Death & Resurrection
Finally, the contemplative option. It has no breakdown, no clear answer. All it is is three questions:
What death am I facing in my life?
What resurrection is God bringing about in my life?
(Both of which lead to:) How are the rhythms of death and resurrection showing up in my life, and how can I orient my life towards this pattern?
As a pastor, this is the one that most excites me, because it prompts me to think about the rhythms of Lent story as the rhythms of my life. The Truth is that God is already bringing about death and resurrection in your life. Whether you notice it or not, it’s happening. However, we’re often too overwhelmed with life or in the thick of the chaos to notice. Or we rationalize things away saying it was “coincidence,” instead of God divinely acting in our lives.
Spending Lent reflecting on these questions in some regularity may be the most powerful practice for you. It might not lead to a daily practice, but is more of a seasonal shift.
🪦 Death. If you need to ask for help with something—finding a therapist, getting into treatment, going to AA for the first time—spend the season doing that. If you need time to grieve, find someone to witness to your experience. If you need to write a letter or ask for forgiveness or seek reconciliation, spend the season discerning and taking the next faithful step on that. As we know from the cross, these are the places God chooses to show up in our lives. May you feel God’s presence and comfort as you face the often painful cross and tomb of your own life.
🌅 Resurrection. We often think the season of Lent has to be sad and despairing, but maybe for you, you’re on the other side of something big and are ready for Easter. Real life Lent has been long enough! If so, what new life has come from your loss or grief, and how can you spend the season praising God for that resurrection? Or if you’re expecting resurrection to be this big huge thing, what small moments of grace and goodness can you name as resurrection in your daily life?
❗️Remember, this is the life of faith. Death and rising. Tomb and resurrection. Grief and new life. It’s happening to us, each and every day, because that’s how God chooses to act in the world and in our lives. Spend the season tuning your eyes to it—big and small—and be amazed by how God shows up.
I end with this.
I’m not some spiritual guru trying to lead you into some mystical experience through these practices (though I believe those are real) or level you up on some spiritual ladder. Nor am I trying to claim that giving something up is “bad” or that you’re “less spiritual” or “less Christian” if you don’t take on a new practice. Some seasons, some years, simply getting through the day is hard enough, and for those of you for whom that’s true, know that God is with you through it all.
What I am is a pastor who profoundly and miraculously believes Christ’s death and resurrection is real and has world-altering implications. I’m also a woman who loves Lent, and believes it can be a tool to engage with this beautiful biblical promise more deeply in our day to day lives.
Because the story that’s told in scripture—the story we remember and reflect on every Lent—is not some ancient old thing that doesn’t mean anything to us.
It’s the story of our lives.
Blessings on your Lenten journey. May God be with you each and every day.
✚
Highly recommend these. I’ve done one with Julian of Norwich and another with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
In the past, I’ve read The Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann (absolutely stunning and life-changing, but hard.) and The Promise of Despair by Andy Root (much more accessible and a good introduction to the theology of the cross).
Easter isn’t in the Bible either—it was just the resurrection!
The Merton Prayer is one of my favorites. Highly recommend.
We teach our confirmation kids this remembrance of baptism: “Remember you are a child of God (make the sign of the cross on your forehead). Remember you are loved (hug yourself). Remember you are not alone (high five a friend near you).”
Jenna I have printed this guide to share with Chris, Jeff and Jenna Mary. We will use this as a template for our Lenten contemplation and discussion. Bravo!!