2016 Belmont University Lenten GuideSample

Psalm 118 is a kind of walking song-prayer. In it, we can hear the worship leader calling out to the priest to open the temple gates so the faithful can make their way to the altar. As such, Psalm 118 has been sung by the faithful in outdoor procession. Ask any Christian liturgical scholar and you’ll hear about some interesting outdoor procession rituals. Fourth century John of Chrysostom held a kind of sing-off or psalmic scrimmage in Constantinople. Concerned by the Arian Christians assembling for all night city processions to sing of what John feared heretical, John set up opposing stations for his followers to make a stand with their own nocturnal hymnody. Constantinople also was the site of processionals born from disasters averted—like earthquakes sending persons into the city streets to pray for life—these became commemorated in yearly processionals of thanksgiving to God. Or take Rogation Days, a procession ritual used for centuries in European villages where Christians walked around the boundaries of their parish to give God thanks for the fruits the land would bear. Rogation Day stations would earn names such as “Gospel Oak” or “Amen Corner” that remain in places to this day. We retain processions in our church services, but historically, a procession intended to enter and end somewhere other than circling through the aisles of a church sanctuary. For our community at Belmont, where does God wish to lead our procession? What public spaces and conversations does God want us to enter? To begin to answer this, we can look at Jesus’ own procession into Jerusalem where we hear Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” sung by the crowd as they welcomed Jesus. Jesus is entering into a place that will take Him into confrontation with authorities and institutions of political and religious power as well as his own death and resurrection. Jesus’ journey leads us into our own—toward the very thing Psalm 118 names at its conclusion—God’s hesed, a rich Hebrew term for God’s loving kindness. This is what Matthew’s Jesus evokes as He yearns to gather Jerusalem’s children to Him, like a mother hen covering her chicks with her wings. As we move through Lent into Holy Week, may we enter more deeply into Jesus’ journey that will take us in our own walk together toward God’s loving kindness. CYNTHIA CURTIS Assistant Professor of Religion College of Theology & Christian Ministry