Lent

What is Lent?

The Season of Lent commences on Ash Wednesday, the day the church marks our mortality and our need for God’s mercy. Many Christians attend Ash Wednesday services, during which time they receive a cross of ash on their forhead with the words, "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Lent unfolds across 40 days of prayer and repentance (with Sundays not counted among the forty days). During this time, many people (but not all) choose to take on one or more disciplines as a way to draw closer to God (not as a way to gain favor).

As Lent concludes, the church enters the Triduum (The Three Days) — the heart of Holy Week — beginning on Maundy Thursday (recalling the last supper) and continuing through Good Friday (recounting Jesus' crucifixion and death) and the Easter Vigil (the time of waiting and watching), and finally culminating in the beginning of Easter (celebrating Jesus' resurrection and his victory over death).

Why is Lent Important?

Lent matters because it is the church’s season of penitence and preparation that intentionally leads us into Holy Week and the joy of Easter, making space for honest self-examination and a deeper turning toward God. In the Lutheran tradition it is also a time of baptismal preparation and baptismal renewal, so that Easter is received not as a one-day event but as the renewal of the life God has already given us in Christ.

Some common "symbols" of Lent

The Liturgical Color Purple (or Violet)

Purple is the primary liturgical color for Lent, signaling repentance and solemnity as the church turns toward the cross and the path to Easter. In this season, purple can also hint at Christ’s kingship — but a kingship revealed most clearly in self-giving love.

Ashes (Ash Wednesday)

Ashes are a visible sign of penitence and mortality—an embodied way of confessing our need for God’s mercy and remembering that life is fragile. Marked with the cross, they also point beyond sin and death to God’s reconciliation in Christ, which is where Lent is ultimately headed.

Lenten Disciplines (a Lenten “rule of life”)

Lenten disciplines are practices that individuals may choose to take on during the season of lent. A discipline of prayer deepens attention to God, a discipline of fasting trains desire and dependence, a discipline of almsgiving turns us outward in love of neighbor. In Lutheran teaching, these practices are not a way to earn God’s favor; they are a response to grace that helps re-center our lives on Christ and they form us — freed by grace — to love and serve our neighbor as our hands do God’s work in the world.

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