Lent is a season in the church calendar set apart as a time of intentional preparation for Easter, typically marked by increased fasting, reflection, and giving to those in need. The season begins roughly forty days before Easter, and Holy Week is the seven-day period from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday.

The entire church year revolves around two celebratory cycles: one culminating in Christmas and the other in Easter. As the Christmas cycle begins with the preparatory season of Advent, the Easter cycle begins with Lent. Advent helps us prepare to celebrate Jesus’ incarnation and to look forward to his Second Coming, while Lent prepares us to celebrate and commemorate Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

Sundays are typically seen as a weekly day of celebration, marked by worship and feasting, yet Lent is traditionally marked by fasting during the week. This year, we are fasting from different things in different ways each week. As a congregation, we will fast from food, screens, sleep, noise, caffeine, sweets, and food once more. We will provide suggestions each Sunday for both individuals and families to observe the fasts. Take our resources and make them your own. Some of them you may totally cut out. Others may need to be adapted based on your situation.

When fasting, we train our bodies to resist their compulsive desires. We don't fast because food is bad, or because entertainment is never a good thing. Instead, we fast as a way of disciplining our minds and bodies to resist temptation, to discover new opportunities to turn to God in prayerful dependence, and to remind ourselves that we are not slaves to our sinful appetites (again, nothing against food!). As a church, we ask you to consider using the season of Lent to practice each week's selected fast in some way: together, we can practice denial and self-control in preparation for worshiping well each Sunday of the season!

Our prayer is that fasting, prayer, and reading the Scriptures will allow us to enter a season of increased penitence. As our hearts are prepared to focus on the grace of Jesus' cross, we can joyfully pray that God will turn our hearts toward him in repentance. 

This Lent, let us look closely at the conditions of our hearts. Let us grow closer to God by giving up certain worldly pleasures, and let us turn toward him in repentance as we prepare to celebrate the central event of human history—the empty tomb!

May we prepare our hearts with diligence and gratitude this Lenten season to joyfully celebrate the empty tomb that changed the course of human history!