The Trouble With Lent (and Why We Still Need It)
Lent makes people uneasy. You can see it on their faces. Ashes on the forehead, talk of fasting and repentance, forty days of restraint—it all feels heavy, awkward, maybe even a little outdated. In a culture obsessed with self-care and personal progress, that discomfort isn’t surprising.
But here’s the thing. Lent itself isn’t the problem. The problem is what we quietly turn it into. Over time, the season picked up habits that sound spiritual but quickly drift into bargaining with God. Feel bad enough. Try harder. Skip a few meals. Maybe then things will balance out. Lent becomes a spiritual workout plan. Repentance turns inward, like staring at yourself in a mirror that never quite tells the truth. And the Gospel? Still there, technically—but pushed to the end. Later. Easter.
Christian discipline isn’t bad. Not even close. Scripture speaks of fasting, prayer, and self-control. Luther says outward practices can be useful, as noted in the Small Catechism. But useful isn’t the same as saving. When discipline becomes the cure rather than the symptom, we’re already off track. Repentance isn’t a self-improvement project. It’s not climbing up to God rung by rung. It’s being stopped cold by God’s Word. Exposed. And addressed.
Ash Wednesday doesn’t invite us to feel miserable for forty days. It tells the truth bluntly: you are dust. That’s not motivational language. It’s reality. Sin isn’t just something we occasionally do wrong—it runs deeper. We don’t need weeks to figure this out. We need to hear it clearly. Again, and again. And then—this part matters—we need to hear another word just as clearly.
The Gospel doesn’t wait until Easter. Christ doesn’t sit back, arms crossed, waiting for us to humble ourselves properly. One of the failures of many Ash Wednesday services (even sincere ones) is that they lean hard into confession and go soft on absolution or delay it. Repentance without forgiveness turns into either despair or performance. The ashes are visible. The promise, not so much.
Paul says it plainly: be reconciled to God. Not by effort. Not by fasting. Because God has already done it in Christ. Repentance isn’t self-applied. It comes from outside us—from a Word spoken to sinners: your sin is taken, your debt is paid, and this is settled. That Word belongs right where sin is named most honestly.
Jesus even warns against making a show of righteousness—fasting, piety, religious posturing. Not because those things are evil, but because righteousness can’t be staged. When it’s given as a gift, good works happen quietly, almost unnoticed.
No, Lent isn’t about earning Easter. Christ has already come. Lent is about being taught—again—about who we are and who Christ is for us. Discipline has a place, sure. But only after the Gospel has been spoken without strings attached. Used rightly, Lent doesn’t turn us inward to manage our repentance. It turns us outward—to Christ, who carries our sin and speaks forgiveness now, not later.
