What Is Lent?
Lent begins on March 5th this year and leads up to Easter, on April 20th.
But what is Lent? What is the meaning of the Lent holiday, how does it connect to Easter, and what are the rules?
One common question people ask is whether Lent is even biblical at all, or whether Christians should participate in Lent.
Let’s take a deep dive into what we know about the holiday, what we can guess, what it means, and what we should do about it.
Table of Contents
History of Lent
No one knows where it comes from.
Okay, that’s not totally true, but it’s not that far off, either. See, for a while it was standard theory to believe that the apostles themselves established Lent, or that it was at least established extremely early in the post-apostolic period. One of the reasons for this is that perhaps the most defining characteristic of Lent is its long period of fasting, and there were lots of examples of fasts observed by religious communities around the time of the apostles. Some really great research revealing this is found in an article by Nicholas Russo.
He identifies some instances of preparatory fasting in the second century that often lasted no longer than a couple of days, or forty hours to commemorate what many believed was the exact amount of time that Jesus spent in his tomb.
If you’ll notice, unlike Lent, these fasts didn’t quite last forty days; instead, we have much shorter fasts described here. Yet even if they were forty days long exactly, that’s not a strong enough connection to link them to Lent specifically since forty as a number holds great significance in the Bible on its own.
Besides just the length of the fasts themselves, let’s look at that phrase “preparatory fasting.” See, Lent traditionally has a built-in function of using fasting as a preparation for catechumens (those undergoing instruction in the doctrines of Christianity) so that they can be baptized on Easter day and thus incorporated into the church. In many churches, including Catholic churches, this is still the case today.
This introduces another reason to doubt the standard theory: the importance of baptism stressed by the Lenten season which culminates on Easter day.
“Easter baptism does not become widespread until the mid-fourth century, and when it does, it appears to be nothing more than an idealized norm alongside which other equally acceptable occasions continue to exist” (Russo 19).
Furthermore, Russo points out that the historical fasts which were often observed before baptism prior to the Council of Nicaea don’t really have any connection to Lent. So, once again, where does it come from?
Well, the most concrete answer we can provide is that when the Council of Nicea issued canons to better align Christians in terms of liturgical practice and church organization, they established a common date for the Easter feast that, previously, had been celebrated on different days of the year depending on the various calendars and methods of calculation (Russo 25).
While the Council of Nicea didn’t explicitly mention anything regarding Lent, we can speculate that the establishment of a common date for Easter at a time when many Christians were practicing fasts and seeking to establish better structure and organization resulted in a gradual development through the fourth century where Christians steadily began to form what we today know as Lent (Russo 25).
This of course included the working in of other holy days relevant to Easter, so let’s examine some of those and what they represent.
Important Lent Dates
Fat Tuesday
Fat Tuesday is on March 4th this year.
Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday” in French), is most commonly associated with New Orleans, beads, and a concerningly short supply of clothing. Many people would no doubt be surprised to hear that this holiday used to hold a great sense of reverence for the coming observance of Lent which is all about penitence and fasting.
The website Learn Religions explains the reason for this by pointing out that the Lent we know today in the West is actually far less stringent about its rules than the Lent practiced by our ancient, Eastern, and Orthodox counterparts; such rules include abstaining from all meat and food that come from animals (milk, cheese, butter, eggs, etc)—essentially, a vegan diet.
*Cries in Meatlovers Supreme Pizza.*
In the past, one issue many people faced with these rules was that their supply of the banned foods couldn’t just be thrown in the trash because they’d worked long and hard to procure them. As such, people decided that the day immediately before Lent—Tuesday—would be a day of feasting and celebration for the upcoming Lenten season. Because of the various foods that needed to be used or else wasted, Christian nations actually developed many of their own meat dishes, breads, and deserts.
As you can imagine, with all that rich, hearty food going around, the day quickly became known as “Fat Tuesday,” and over time the feast gradually became more and more divorced from the spirit of Lenten penitence and more and more aligned with a spirit of indulgence.
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is on March 5th this year.
Yolanda Norton’s essay on Ash Wednesday explains that the holiday officially kicks off the start of Lent and helps prepare individuals for the season by marking them with ash, a symbol of mortality, penitence, and Jesus’s sacrifice (Norton 1).
But who first came up with the idea of smearing ash on people’s foreheads?
Well, like we discussed earlier, the historical records of Lent don’t give a whole lot of information on that account. What we do know is that the practice started somewhere around the middle of the tenth century, and near the end of the 11th we see Pope Urban II call for the general use of ashes on this day. A century later, people began using the ashes of burnt palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday for Ash Wednesday—reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is on April 13th this year.
Speaking of Palm Sunday, what is it?
Well, this holiday actually calls back to the Gospels’ account of when Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and the people there celebrated his arrival by laying palm leaves on the road before him and waving them in the air. We see one such account of this event in Matthew 21:1-11:
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
But why palm branches? Well, Bible Study Tools explains that similar to how an olive branch serves as a symbol of peace, the palm branch serves as a symbol of victory that foretold Jesus’s coming victory over sin and death.
The celebration of Palm Sunday, then, is the celebration of Jesus’s arrival to Jerusalem that preceded his sacrificial death and resurrection on Easter.
Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday is on April 17th this year.
So, we’ve got the name Fat Tuesday because of all the great food, Ash Wednesday because of the smearing of ash on foreheads, and Palm Sunday because of the palms that symbolized Jesus’s coming victory when he entered Jerusalem.
But who the heck is Maundy?
Well, according to Christianity.com, it’s less a who and more a what. This holiday celebrates Jesus’s mandate to his disciples on the Thursday evening when he washed their feet and announced who would betray him before he was later arrested; the holiday gets its name from the Latin word for command being mandatum which, in its shortened form, is “maundy.”
We find the mandate (or “command”) observed on Maundy Thursday in John 13:31-35.
When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Good Friday
Good Friday is on April 18th this year.
It should come as no surprise at this point that there’s some debate on the origin of the name “Good Friday.” Given that this holiday reflects upon Jesus’s sacrificial death, a time of great distress for the apostles and early followers of Jesus, why even call it “good” in the first place? Interestingly enough, Christianity.com points out that in German this holiday is actually called Karfreitag which means “Sorrowful Friday.”
Gotta love the German language for always being so straight to the point.
Anyway, some people think the name “Good Friday” developed from the older name “God’s Friday.” This is similar to how our modern word “goodbye” developed from the older phrase “God be with ye.”
Whatever you call it, this holiday is meant to call to mind Jesus’s agonizing sacrifice on the cross that won victory over sin and death. Personally, I think we should hold in tension both the celebration of the victory that Jesus won for us and the sorrow we feel for how much he had to endure for our sake.
As with most things, we have to be careful not to fall too far one way or the other with how we honor this holiday. Some people might want to take the sorrowful aspect too far and hand out whips for self-flagellation, while others might want to hold a massive feast and celebrate all night long. Both of these approaches fail to fully capture the meaning and weight of Jesus’s sacrifice.
Instead, let’s do our best to strike the balance of solemn recognition and grateful praise for the cost our Savior paid to redeem us from our sins.
Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday is on April 19th this year.
Holy Saturday officially marks the end of Lent and the start of the massive spike in Pizza Hut sales.
*Cheers in Meatlovers Supreme Pizza.*
The practice and celebration of Holy Saturday, particularly in the Western world, has changed throughout the centuries.
Britannica points out that for a while the Roman Catholic Church and some others held a kind of anti-celebration where they held no services in order to commemorate how Christ’s followers were left totally adrift without him. After a few centuries, though, in 1955 they decided to start holding services again that include lighting fires and candles, ringing bells, baptizing catechumens, and other fun stuff.
While this is the case for the more Western churches, the Eastern Orthodox churches actually never stopped holding their Holy Saturday services. As we’ll see again later with the rules of Lent, the Eastern Orthodox churches have stayed much more consistent in the way they celebrate and practice Lent. Still, this should continue to show that the specific manner of how you celebrate these holidays doesn’t matter as much as the state of your heart.
Now where have I heard something like that before?
Easter
Easter is on April 20th this year.
Eggs! Chocolate! Jellybeans!
Jesus?
Similar to the discussion surrounding Halloween, a lot of people have very strong opinions and feelings about the celebration of Easter. Is it pagan? Can it be redeemed? Is the Easter bunny the true mark of the beast? Am I damning my children to hell by letting them hunt for Easter eggs?
Let’s talk about it.
First, where does the name even come from?
Most people now tend to agree that the word “Easter” comes from a Latin phrase used to highlight Easter week, in albis, which is a reference to “dawn” in the plural form, which itself went through a few more changes that are too boring to get into for anyone other than the linguistic nerds among us.
We love you, Stephen. Please leave the etymology textbooks alone and come back home.
Anyway, the main takeaway is that the name has some Christian roots. What else? Well, further study shows the Council of Nicaea actually set a specific timeframe for the Easter holiday to occur, Easter eggs themselves developed as a Christian tradition during Holy Week, and even the Easter bunny has some roots in Protestant rejection of Catholic Easter customs.
Still, just because it was instituted as a Catholic holiday and the customs themselves have Christian origins doesn’t mean a whole lot for the holiday we know and love/hate today.
After all, the same is true for the mixed parentage of Halloween which comes from both pagans and Catholics. That said, this doesn’t empower people to preach fire and brimstone on five-year-olds hunting for Easter eggs in their front yard or local park, either.
The consistent theme we’re running into here is that of being perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
*Cue epic Marvel movie music intro.*
The Rules of Lent
Since the Bible doesn’t include any rules for Lent (or any mention of Lent in general), different denominations have developed different rules for the practice of Lent.
Among Protestants, there pretty much aren’t any rules; while certain holidays, such as Easter, are still celebrated, these churches typically don’t require their congregants to follow any strict adherence to fasting or abstinence. That said, some Protestant denominations such as Luterhans (read “Catholic Lites”) do follow some of the same rules as the Catholic Church.
Speaking of Catholics, they have kind of a confusing system of fasting and abstinence. For those without major medical complications from the ages of eighteen to fifty-nine, they must abstain from meat (fish is okay) and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and then abstain from meat on all Fridays during Lent, and they are encouraged to fast on other weekdays as well. Those who are fourteen are older participate in the abstinence of meat but are not required to fast as well. All believers are encouraged to partake in almsgiving (giving to the poor).
The Orthodox Church takes it to another level.
Starting off, all meat is prohibited the week before Lent. Then, every weekday of Lent requires believers to give up meat, eggs, dairy, fish, wine, and oil. Just when you thought they’d hit the maximum piety one can achieve, they also encourage their members to perform a full fast—eating nothing—on Good Friday.
What is the meaning of Lent?
Catholics observe Lent as a time of penitence and reflection upon Jesus Christ’s sacrifice by their fasting and abstinence. However, they also see Lent as a time to prepare individuals (called “catechumens”) for incorporation into the church by baptism, which Catholics believe removes a person’s sin, thereby actually performing the act of salvation upon that person.
Lent can also be used as a way for excommunicants to be restored to the church and once again partake in Holy Communion (the Eucharist), which Catholics hold as a Sacrament of Initiation. Why is this important to know?
Receiving Holy Communion worthily brings us graces that affect us both spiritually and physically. Spiritually, our souls become more united to Christ, both through the graces we receive and through the change in our actions that those graces effect. Frequent Communion increases our love for God and for our neighbor, which expresses itself in action, which makes us more like Christ.
Physically, frequent Communion relieves us of our passions (Richert).
So you see, Lent isn’t just a period of reflection upon Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, but instead a formal observance the Catholic church holds which is embedded into the larger framework of Catholic beliefs about sin, baptism, the Eucharist, and so on.
Can we still participate in Lent as Protestants, then?
Well, we still participate in the Eucharist even though we don’t hold the same beliefs as the Catholic church about its effects, and Catholics actually have very restrictive rules about letting Protestants join them in their Holy Communion.
Similarly, then, if Protestants want to adopt a practice of Lent into their own lives by fasting, abstaining, and reflecting upon Jesus Christ’s sacrifice in ways that don’t undermine or contradict our Protestant beliefs, then this can be a fruitful and beneficial experience.
References:
Richert, Scott. “The Sacrament of Holy Communion.” Learn Religions, 9 April 2020,www.learnreligions.com/the-sacrament-of-holy-communion-542131. Accessed 03 March 2025.
Russo, Nicholas. “The Early History of Lent.” Academia, 12 May 2017, https://www.academia.edu/32980809/The_Early_History_of_Lent. Accessed 03 March 2025.