The Question Lent Invites Us to Ask Again
Why discovering who Jesus really is might change the way we see everything
Lent is a season of questions.
For centuries, Christians have used these forty days to step back from the noise of ordinary life and ask deeper things about faith, purpose, and the shape of our lives.
One question sits at the centre of them all.
Who is Jesus?
It sounds simple enough, but the longer you sit with it, the harder it becomes to answer. Across the centuries, people have offered all kinds of descriptions: teacher, prophet, healer, revolutionary, moral guide, spiritual leader.
Yet the Gospels refuse to let us settle for any single label.
They keep opening the question wider.
And Lent is exactly the kind of season that invites us to sit with that question again, perhaps more honestly than we usually do.
If I were to ask everyone reading this to summarise who Jesus is in one sentence, I’d probably get wildly different answers.
That’s not surprising. The Bible itself offers layer upon layer of description: poet, prophet, healer, teacher, revolutionary, saviour, God-with-us. Each passage adds an extra dimension to his description.
The Jesus Who Satisfies
Maybe we can look at a beautiful passage from Isaiah for an answer. The prophet describes one who will satisfy the thirsty without cost. “Come, all you who are thirsty,” he writes, “come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat.” This is the kind of Messiah Isaiah foresaw, one who gives freely, out of sheer love, offering life in abundance.
Fast-forward to the New Testament, and we read Jesus in action, feeding a crowd of five thousand people with nothing more than five loaves and two fish. It’s one of those moments where the impossible becomes tangible. Bread multiplies. Hunger disappears, and when it’s over, twelve baskets are left over, abundance again.
It’s not just about feeding bellies. It’s a sign. Isaiah’s vision is happening in real time. The one who calls himself the bread of life is standing before them, giving life, literally.
You’d think everyone would have understood who he was by that point.
