HOPE   EVANGELICAL
LUTHERAN   CHURCH

Our liturgical colour is purple, from Ash Wednesday until Maundy Thursday, the commemoration of the Last Supper.   The exception is Palm Sunday, when the colour is red.   After the serving of Holy Communion on the evening of Maundy Thursday the paraments are taken down and the sanctuary left bare or draped in mourning black for Good Friday, the day of the Crucifiction.   Traditionally worn by emperors and kings, purple symbolizes the dominion of our Lord, as well as the prayer and repentence of his people.

Dye for the colour purple originates in Phoenicia. The Greek word for purple gives us the name Phoenicia, or "Land of the Purple", the ancient land of Canaan.   The dye, Tyrian Purple was extracted from the murex snail, taking some 12,000 of the creatures to extract 1.5 grams of the dye, more costly than gold itself.

In pagan times many societies regarded the palm as a symbol of victory.   It was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of Christ's victory over death, and of their own faith in Christ over their sinful nature.   Palms also commemorate Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem:
And a very great multitude spread their garments
in the way; others cut down branches from the
trees, and strewed them in the way.
          Matthew 21:8

From the commemoration of this event on Palm Sunday each year Christians have evolved the tradition of the blessing of the palms, and of twisting them into crosses.   In medieval times the palm cross was the badge of Christian pilgrims or palmers who had made the arduous journey to the Holy Land.   Though church historians differ regarding the earliest usage of this blessing, according to Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (A.D. 512-538), circa A.D. 397, Peter, Bishop of Edessa, had decreed the benediction of palms for all churches throughout Mesopotamia, a ceremony that most probably originated at Jerusalem.
The palms blessed on Palm Sunday were in former times used in processions that day; then and now they are taken home by the faithful and retained in prominent places within the house as tokens of faith.   The ashes used for the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday are made from palms blessed on Palm Sunday in the previous year.

The Jerusalem Cross, symbol both of Christianity as a whole, and also of the medieval Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem in particular, consists of a large Greek Cross shown as the heraldic cross potent, the arms of which enclose four smaller plain Greek crosses, symbolizing the wounds suffered by Christ on the cross.   As a whole, it represents Jerusalem as the centre of Christianity, and has been interpreted as a symbol of our Christian duty to spread the Gospel of Christ to the four corners of the Earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the Name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
teaching them to obey all things
whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you alway
even unto the end of the world.
          Matthew 28:19-20

Our Church Calendar
A.D. 2010

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