The Sacred Interruption of Lent

Why we need it more than ever

Photo by Wesley Tingey

Lent is a season in the Christian calendar marked by repentance, prayer, fasting, generosity, and reflection on the cross and resurrection. For forty days, the church steps into a rhythm meant to slow us down and re-center our lives on Christ. It mirrors the life of Jesus in Matthew 4, when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to fast, pray, and be tested. Lent is not simply tradition; it is a journey that builds anticipation toward Holy Week, Good Friday, and ultimately Easter morning.

But more than anything, Lent is an invitation to recalibrate the soul.

It is a season to ask honest questions: What have I grown attached to? What am I reaching for when I’m tired, anxious, or bored? What am I desiring more than Christ?

We live in a time when our attention is constantly being claimed. Social media pulls us into endless comparison. Breaking news alerts demand our outrage and opinion. The comforts of modern life slowly become the coping mechanisms we rely on to make it through the day. Most of us are not intentionally choosing these attachments, we are simply drifting into them. Lent interrupts the drift.

Lent is not about losing something; it is about discovering what has quietly been owning us.

Fasting, prayer, and reflection are not acts of earning God’s affection. We already have that in Christ. Instead, Lent is a voluntary walk into the wilderness so that the Spirit can speak freshly to our hearts. We starve certain comforts not because they are evil, but because they have become excessive. In the quiet that follows, we begin to notice what has been numbing us and what has been shaping us.

• Awareness leads to repentance.

• Repentance leads to reordered desires.

• Reordered desires lead to renewed love.

This is why Lent matters now more than ever. Our culture runs on speed, noise, and distraction. Lent invites us into slowness, silence, and intentionality. It is not punishment; it is preparation. It is not shame; it is clarity. It is not about proving devotion; it is about recovering it.

I often call Lent a “brutiful” experience — brutal because it exposes our attachments, beautiful because it restores our focus. We willingly wrestle with the things that compete for our hearts so that we can rediscover the joy of undivided devotion to Christ.

We enter the wilderness not to lose ourselves, but to find that Christ is enough.

Lent reminds us that the road to resurrection always passes through honesty, surrender, and renewed hunger for God. And in an age of endless distraction, that invitation may be more necessary than ever.