The most common thing people say about Lent is also the thing that stops them cold: "Lent isn't in the Bible."
And technically, that's true. You won't find the word "Lent" anywhere in your concordance. The 40-day pre-Easter observance that billions of Christians practice every year isn't named in Scripture. But here's where the conversation usually goes off track — because the practices Lent is built around, the fasting, the repentance, the prayer, the call to return to God before celebrating resurrection — those are absolutely in the Bible. Deeply, repeatedly, unmistakably.
The question worth asking isn't really whether the word "Lent" appears in Scripture. It's whether the heart of Lent does. And the answer to that question is yes, all over the place.
The 40 Days: Where Lent Gets Its Shape
The 40-day structure of Lent comes directly from Matthew 4 and Mark 1. After his baptism, Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, where he fasted for forty days and nights while being tempted by Satan.
Matthew 4:1-2 records it plainly: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry."
Mark's account adds a detail Matthew leaves out: "He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him" (Mark 1:13). It wasn't just privation — it was isolation, with nothing but temptation on one side and angelic presence on the other. Jesus didn't emerge from those forty days weakened. He came out ready for everything his ministry required.
That's the picture Lent is modeled after. Not 40 days of religious performance, but a season of deliberately stepping away from ordinary comfort to focus on God — and coming through it prepared for what matters most.
Return to God with Your Whole Heart, Not Just Your Habits
If there's one passage that sits at the center of what Lent is supposed to be, it's Joel 2:12-14:
"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. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing.
The detail that does most of the theological work here is the phrase "rend your heart and not your garments." In ancient Israel, tearing your outer garments was the standard sign of grief or repentance — visible, public, dramatic. God through Joel is saying: don't just do the outward thing. Do the inward thing. Don't perform grief; actually grieve. Don't put on a spiritual show; actually return.
This is the critique Jesus will make centuries later about fasting done in public so others can see. It's the same concern. God isn't interested in Lenten practices that make you look devout. He's interested in whether you're actually coming back to him.
The reason this passage belongs at the heart of Lent is that it holds both sides together. Fasting and weeping are named — the outward practices aren't dismissed. But they only matter as an expression of genuine return. The discipline is the vehicle; return to God is the destination.
What God Actually Calls Fasting
Isaiah 58 is the passage most Lent articles gloss over, which is a shame, because it's one of the most challenging things in the entire Old Testament on this subject.
God's people in Isaiah's day were fasting — and confused about why it wasn't doing anything. They were going through the motions and not seeing results. In Isaiah 58:6-7, God responds:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
God isn't rejecting fasting here. He's redefining it. Or more accurately, he's recovering its original purpose. Fasting isn't primarily about self-denial as a spiritual achievement. It's about what happens when you clear away your own comfort and your own consumption long enough to actually see people who are suffering — and then do something about it.
This is why many Christian traditions connect Lent not just to giving something up, but to giving something away. The traditional Lenten practice of almsgiving flows directly from passages like this one. When you fast from your own indulgences, that freed-up energy, time, and money should go somewhere. Isaiah tells us where.
Fasting Without the Performance
In Matthew 6:16-18, Jesus addresses fasting directly — and what he says is worth paying close attention to, especially the word he chooses to open with:
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Jesus says when you fast — not if you fast. There's an assumption built into that word choice. Fasting isn't presented here as an optional spiritual add-on for particularly serious Christians. It's something Jesus expects his followers to do, and his concern is about how, not whether.
The warning about performing fasting publicly carries a pointed irony for Christians who treat Lent as something to announce on social media. The whole point of the season, according to Jesus, is that it's between you and God. The moment it becomes about being seen as someone who takes Lent seriously, you've already missed it.
The Prayer That Belongs to Lent
Psalm 51 is David's prayer after Nathan the prophet confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba. It's the most honest, stripped-down prayer of repentance in the entire Bible, and it fits the spirit of Lent better than almost anything else in Scripture.
Verses 10-12 land at the heart of it:
"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
What makes this prayer so honest is what it doesn't ask for. David doesn't ask to feel better. He doesn't ask for his circumstances to change. He asks for his heart to be different. Create in me a clean heart — the word "create" in Hebrew (bara) is the same word used for God's work in Genesis 1. David is asking God to do something only God can do: make something new where there wasn't anything before.
"Restore to me the joy of your salvation" is worth sitting with during Lent. The joy of salvation can become something you know about without actually experiencing. David had walked with God for years and still lost it. Lent gives space to notice that and ask honestly for it back.
What Lent Points Toward
Everything about Lent points somewhere. The 40 days aren't an end in themselves — they're a preparation for Easter. And the apostle Paul gives the clearest statement of what that preparation is supposed to produce in Philippians 3:10-11:
"I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead."
Paul lists suffering before resurrection here, not because suffering is the point, but because you can't skip it. Knowing the power of Christ's resurrection requires also knowing participation in his sufferings. That's the rhythm Lent follows. The season asks you to sit with the weight of what the cross cost before you celebrate what it accomplished.
This is why Lent done well doesn't produce guilt or gloom — it produces gratitude. When you've spent 40 days fasting, praying, repenting, and sitting in the reality of Christ's suffering, the arrival of Easter Sunday hits differently. You haven't just shown up for the celebration. You've been preparing for it.
What Scripture Actually Gives You for These 40 Days
Lent, as a named tradition, isn't in your Bible. But everything it asks of you is.
The forty-day pattern comes from Jesus in the wilderness. The call to return to God with genuine repentance rather than religious performance comes from Joel. The reminder that real fasting overflows into generosity comes from Isaiah. Jesus's teaching on private, sincere fasting comes from the Sermon on the Mount. The prayer model for this kind of honest self-examination comes from Psalm 51. And the forward orientation — the reason any of it matters — comes from Paul's conviction that knowing Christ means knowing both the cross and the empty tomb.
None of that was invented by a church council. It was already there, waiting for a season to hold it together.
Whether you observe Lent through your church's tradition or you're simply looking for Scripture that can anchor 40 days of intentional faith, these passages give you more than enough to work with. The practices are ancient. The call is the same one it's always been: return to God with your whole heart.
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