{"id":32888,"date":"2014-08-24T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=32888"},"modified":"2015-03-19T22:17:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T05:17:40","slug":"why-palms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/08\/24\/why-palms\/","title":{"rendered":"Why palms?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Today&#8217;s post is one of those blog entries which I wrote quickly wrote and then forgot to schedule for publishing. Well, better late than never&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tonight I went to an Eastern Orthodox parish for Saturday Vespers and I was struck by how they decorated their church in preparation for Palm Sunday:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Gregory-Of-Nyssa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-32889 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Gregory-Of-Nyssa.jpg\" alt=\"Gregory Of Nyssa\" width=\"800\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Gregory-Of-Nyssa.jpg 800w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Gregory-Of-Nyssa-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now, the reason for decorating with palms was obvious, given that Sunday is called &#8220;<strong>Palm<\/strong> Sunday&#8221; and in the liturgy we&#8217;ll hear the account of Jesus\u00a0being welcomed with palm branches:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span style=\"color: #993300\"><em><span class=\"text John-12-12\">The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span id=\"en-RSVCE-30757\" class=\"text John-12-13\"><em>So they took <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">branches of palm trees<\/span> and went out to meet him, crying, \u201cHosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!\u201d<\/em> &#8211; John 12:12-13<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>However, I got to wondering&#8230;why palms? Was there any significance to it?<\/p>\n<p>Thinking about it, I realized that many of the icons in my own parish featured palm branches. What was the symbolism? I was curious, so I went looking&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After a little bit of digging, I read\u00a0that palms signify\u00a0<strong>victory<\/strong>. This makes sense of the above Scripture passage since the people are welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem like a triumphant king. I found out that the palm was then used in iconography to symbolize victory over sinful flesh, as well as the victory of the martyrs who gave their lives for Christ.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-More-You-Know.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-42661 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-More-You-Know.png\" alt=\"The-More-You-Know\" width=\"600\" height=\"436\" srcset=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-More-You-Know.png 600w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/The-More-You-Know-300x218.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s post is one of those blog entries which I wrote quickly wrote and then forgot to schedule for publishing. Well, better late than never&#8230; Tonight I went to an Eastern Orthodox parish for Saturday Vespers and I was struck by how they decorated their church in preparation for Palm Sunday: Now, the reason for decorating with palms was obvious,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2969,945,2740,2741],"class_list":["post-32888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-featured","tag-palm-sunday","tag-palms","tag-victory"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44137,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32888\/revisions\/44137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}