What Is Lent and What Does the Bible Say About Fasting

Lent is one of those words that millions of people observe every year and most of them couldn't tell you where it comes from or what the Bible actually says about it. So let's start there. Because the answer is more interesting than you'd expect.

The word Lent comes from the Old English lencten, which simply means spring. The lengthening of days. The season itself predates any formal church calendar. It became a forty-day period of fasting and preparation before Easter, modeled loosely on Jesus' forty days in the wilderness. But here's the thing. The Bible never mentions Lent. Not once. It's a tradition, not a command.

What the Bible does talk about, extensively, is fasting. And it has very specific things to say about what fasting is for and what it isn't for. Jesus addresses it directly in the Sermon on the Mount.

Passage I

And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Notice the language. Jesus says when you fast, not if you fast. He assumes his listeners are fasting. It's a given. But his concern is not whether they do it. His concern is why. And the why matters more than the act itself.

Passage II

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

So Jesus isn't abolishing fasting. He's stripping it of performance. He's saying the fast that matters is the one nobody sees. The one between you and God, with no audience. That's a harder fast than giving up chocolate for forty days. That's a fast that requires you to be honest about what you're actually doing and who you're doing it for.

But the most radical passage on fasting in the entire Bible isn't in the Gospels. It's in Isaiah 58. And it will rearrange everything you think fasting means.

Passage III

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah to people who are fasting and complaining that God isn't noticing. They're going through the motions. They're putting on sackcloth, bowing their heads, making a show of their hunger. And God says, essentially you've missed the point entirely.

Passage IV

Is it such a fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?

The Hebrew word for fast here is tsom. It means to cover the mouth to abstain from food. But God redefines it. He says the fast he actually wants is not about your stomach. It's about justice. It's about loosening chains. Feeding the hungry. Sheltering the homeless. Covering the naked. That's the fast that gets God's attention.

So when we talk about Lent when we talk about giving something up for forty days the Bible's own witness pushes us past personal discipline into something much more uncomfortable. The question isn't what are you giving up. The question is who are you setting free.

Passage V

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

This is the tension at the heart of any serious conversation about fasting. The private discipline and the public demand. Jesus says fast in secret. Isaiah says fast by doing justice. And both are true. Both are operating at the same time.

So we've got two biblical frames for fasting. Jesus in Matthew 6 says do it quietly, between you and God, with no performance. Isaiah 58 says the fast God wants is justice feeding the hungry, breaking chains, sheltering the exposed. And the question for anyone observing Lent is which one are you doing? Or better are you doing either?

There's a reason the early church settled on forty days. The number forty echoes all over the Hebrew Bible. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness. Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai. Elijah fasted forty days on the way to Horeb. And Jesus fasted forty days before beginning his public ministry.

Passage VI

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

That last line is so human it almost catches you off guard. After fasting forty days he was hungry. Of course he was. The text doesn't dress it up. It doesn't spiritualize the discomfort. Jesus was physically depleted. And that's when the temptation comes. Not when he's strong. When he's empty.

The Greek word for tempted here is peirazo. It means to test, to try, to prove by trial. The wilderness fast was not a spiritual retreat. It was a proving ground. And the first temptation is about the fast itself turn these stones into bread. End your own hunger. Use your power for yourself.

Jesus refuses. And his refusal is a quote from Deuteronomy. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He's quoting the wilderness experience of Israel back to the tempter. Israel failed that test. Jesus doesn't.

Passage VII

But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

So fasting in the biblical sense is not about willpower. It's not about proving something to yourself or to God. It's about creating a space of dependence. You remove something food, comfort, distraction and in the space that opens up, you discover what you were actually relying on.

The early church fathers understood this. Basil of Caesarea wrote that fasting is the food of the soul. Augustine said it's a way of loosening the grip of the body on the spirit. They weren't anti-body. They were pro-attention. Fasting clears the noise.

And there's a practical dimension here that the Bible doesn't shy away from. Fasting changes your body's relationship to time. Hours feel longer. You notice hunger, and then you notice what's behind the hunger. Anxiety. Boredom. The need to control something. Fasting surfaces what food was covering up.

Passage VIII

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

That's Isaiah 58 again. And notice what God promises to those who fast the way he actually wants. Light breaking forth. Healing springing up. God himself becoming your rearguard. The reward for the right kind of fast is not spiritual brownie points. It's restoration. Yours and the world's.

So if you observe Lent if you give something up for forty days the Bible invites you to ask a harder question than what am I sacrificing. The harder question is what am I becoming. Are you becoming someone who needs less? Or someone who gives more? Because Isaiah says those are the same thing.

The fast that God chooses is not the one that empties your stomach. It's the one that empties your grip. On comfort. On control. On the illusion that you don't need anyone and no one needs you. That's the fast worth keeping. Not just for forty days. But as a way of being alive.

Passage IX

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, "Here I am."