2017 Belmont University Lenten Devotional Guideنمونہ

As we begin Holy Week, we do so with Palm Sunday. We celebrate Jesus’ entry into the city on a donkey while those around Him waved triumphant palm branches and proclaimed “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” The palms celebrated Jesus as the long awaited relief to their suffering. We also know the same hands that held these palms would rise up against their Messiah and call for His crucifixion a few days later. So what can we learn from the psalms? In many traditions the palms play a larger part in the Lenten story. After their use on Palm Sunday, the leaves are kept and burned for the next Ash Wednesday service. It is a beautiful ritual that connects the ongoing observance of the Lenten season. My sister-in law will tell you this is one of her most cherished traditions as a pastor. Each year in her church in Tennessee, the burning of the palms marked the end and the next beginning. When she moved to a parish in Nebraska a few years ago she realized she was not prepared for her first Ash Wednesday service not having any saved palm leaves available to her. A few days before Ash Wednesday, a package arrived in the mail from her former church with the ashes from her last Palm Sunday there—a reminder of the connection of each Lenten season and the body of Christ. And so we learn from the palms that today’s celebration makes a way for next year’s call to repentance. We are reminded of the ways we celebrate Christ and then deny Him days later. We learn from the palms that we are frail, able to be reduced to ashes once again. CHRISTY RIDINGS Director of Spiritual Formation University Ministries