Wedding Homily

by the Rev. Dean Herberts

Andy & Rebekah!  Don't look at me but look at each other and see the gift God is giving to each of you!

"The two shall become one flesh."  To all the animals God only says, "Be fruitful and multiply."  And how I do hope & expect if God wills it that you have as many children as you do in your wedding party, however, God's gift of marriage is unique to human kind.  God's gift of marriage is more than "being fruitful and multiplying."

As husband and wife, you compliment one another, find delight in each other and serve with love an honor.

Andy you may love golfing.

Rebekah you may love a silly beagle dog and hippogriffs but that isn't the love you share as husband and wife.

Andy and Andy's Rebekah you may love all the people in this room, your parents, your siblings, your nieces & nephews and obviously your brother-in-law, but that isn't the love you share as husband and wife as God says, "man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife."

What you share is a love which is head over heels for each other.  There is that silly statement, "What's yours is mine and what is mine is mine."  Well, forget that!  All that stuff.. the money, the hobbies, yes, even the family, none of that matters as long as Andy has Rebekah and Rebekah has Andy.  "And the two shall become one flesh.  So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What God has joined together let not man separate."

Of course your marriage cannot be as it is intended unless it is a part of another marriage.  That is the marriage of Christ and His bride The Church. 

Without Christ, your marriage is no different than the rest of creation hookups, "be fruitful and multiply." Without Christ Jesus you would be incapable of loving each other in any form of the word as scripture says, "We love because He first loved us."

Without Christ, His incarnation, His life, His death, His resurrection, marriage would be destined to fail.  For if He is not risen then we are not forgiven and we could not practice forgiveness with each other and with no forgiveness all relationships would fail, but CHRIST our bridegroom is Risen!  He laid down His life for you His bride washing away your sins and presenting you as His perfect bride.

Yes, true marriage love, loving you so much that He gave up his 'godly' comforts to dwell among us His creation and endure the curse of sin and giving His life for what He loves,,.. You, His bride, The Church.

Marriage love, head over heels in love for the other. 

Andy you will confess that you will live in the holy estate of matrimony as God ordained it.  That you will nourish and cherish Rebekah as Christ loved His body, the Church, giving Himself up for her.  That you will love, honor, and keep Rebekah in sickness and in health and, forsaking all others, remain united to her alone, so long as you both shall live.

Rebekah similarly you will confess that you will live in the holy state of matrimony as God ordained it.  That you will submit to Andy as the Church submits to Christ.  That you will love, honor and keep him in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, remain united to him alone, so long as you both shall live.

Both of you have the joy of practicing loving, serving, and forgiving each other from this day until God calls one of you to rest from your labors.  So God willing you will have A LOT of practice loving, serving and forgiving just as Christ does for you.

How wonderful for you two that you share in confession like Ruth and Naomi, "where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God." And as St. Peter states, that  you are heirs of the grace of life.

What joy it is for you Andy and Andy's Rebekah to share in faith that the gift of marriage you enter into today points you to an even greater marriage that not even death can separate.  

Andy & Rebekah, don't look at me.  Look at each other and Jesus.  See the gift that God has given you here today with each other and the marriage feast to come that has no end with your Savior Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.  Amen!

And one of my personal favorites...

The look that says: “You, sir, are responsible for this.” And the look back that says: “Yes, maam. I most certainly am.”

A couple more...

...with (I'm sure) many more to follow:

What great joy!

Yesterday I gave my youngest into the arms of her beloved, and so received the gift of another son. Pastor Ball presided, Pastor Herberts preached an awesome homily (I hope to post it later), and then we had a great time celebrating with Bekah and Andy and always remembering that their marriage is to be a reflection of the love between our Heavenly Bridegroom and the Church. Just a handful of pics:

Getting Real

This weekend, God willing, my youngest will wed her beloved, Andrew Ibisch, at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Hamel. It's all getting real. Today they got keys to their new home and we helped them start moving stuff in. Andy will be staying there after Tuesday. Family begins arriving tomorrow: Lauren and children, first. Wednesday brings Dean and possibly Aunt Sandy. Friday Aunt Dee, Uncle Keith, Savannah and Aunt Debbie and Uncle Doug. Not sure when cousin Russ and his fiance arrive. 

This wedding will be different for me (and I'm loving it): I just get to be the dad! Son-in-law Dean will preach and Pastor Ball will be liturgist. Carlo will return to St. Paul's organ bench for the service (and there'll be a LOT of Bach and one Bish). David is singing Starke's lovely "Gracious Savior, Grant Your Blessing."

The wedding is rather small, as per Bekah's and Andy's preference. We'll only be about 75 all told. And for the reception? How fun is this: we'll be doing salad, pizza (Bekah: "Who doesn't love pizza?"), beer and wine and lemonade and water. There'll of course be cake and some personal pies. AND we'll have a whole parcel full of the bride and groom's nieces and nephews (eleven children six and under!) to keep things lively. 

Chapel Homily (Exaudi Nos Gospel)

Chapel 5.18.18

Welcome to the Board of Directors.

The Order of Matins begins on p. 219ff. Please Stand.

Hymn of the Day: 539 Christ Is the World's Redeemer

Reading [EHV]

26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. 27And you also are going to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning."

16:1"I have told you these things so that you will not fall away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who murders you will think he is offering a service to God. 3They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me. 4But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you may remember that I told them to you."

Easter Responsory, p. 222

Homily:

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I think in our day it is easy to hear a reading like this and to think right away of the growing hostility that the world shows to our faith. But I don't think in that case we'd really be grasping what Jesus is getting at here. You see, the world never puts anyone out of the synagogue, the gathering of people to hear God's Word read and preached. The world may well murder Christians (and it has and does), but it doesn't think that doing so is in any way offering some sort of service, latria, liturgy, to God. The world doesn't care about offering anything to God. No, to take the words of today's Gospel and apply them to opposition from the world is to miss something vital.

From the get go, the hatred was on two fronts. The pressure of the world to conform to its ideas, to be governed by its values, to validate its lies. And yes, Caesar still can get testy on this point as we readily see and shouldn't be the least bit surprised about. But the other front is the one Jesus was dealing with in today's reading. The opposition that arises from within the assembly of those who gather to hear and ponder the Word. One name comes to mind right away, doesn't it? Saul of Tarsus.

Here's a man who put folks out of the synagogues, consented to the death of Christ's witness, His martyr, St. Stephen after Stephen courageously testified about Him, and who zealously absconded with Christians property, threw men and women into jail, and decided they deserved the death penalty. And he did it all for the glory of God. All in good conscience and with the conviction that God was pleased with Him and delighted in such zeal for His law, such repudiation of a manifest fraud.

"He came to His own and His own received Him not." And they THEY came to their own and their own received them not either.

But have you ever wondered what it was about Jesus and about the message He gave His apostles to carry that could produce such a visceral and vicious reaction from people who loved and listened all the time to God's Word? What is it about Jesus that ticked off those like Saul? What could possibly produce this murderous hatred?

I don't think we need to hunt further than the story Jesus told in Luke 15. "This man receives sinners and eats with them…" The love of the Father for the son who had gotten lost and so was dead, but who came back and was welcomed, embraced, and all without asking him to make reparations or do anything. Just welcomed back because he was his son and he loved him. And then the old brother. Here's the opposition in today's reading. The older brother who is ticked off. "Look, these many years I have served you and never disobeyed your command." He feels so angry, so taken for granted, so presumed on, when his life of trying to please his father and do his father's will is, apparently, no better than that of his father's other son who broke every commandment with impunity and crept back home with his tail between his legs only to be welcomed? Loved? Celebrated? Seriously? NO WAY.

Have you ever dwelt on the tenderness of the Father's response? He doesn't yell at the older son. He doesn't shame him any more than he shamed his younger brother. He speaks to him with such tenderness: "Son, you are with me always. All that is mine is yours. Share my joy. It was fitting for us to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found."

Just like he dealt in mercy with Saul in all his self-righteous blindness. Just like he deals with you and me. Jesus really does welcome sinners and eats with them. And he pats the seat beside himself and says: "You too. Come on, join in. Let it go. You qualify" And when you imagine: "But wait a cotton pickin minute. They need to repent. They need to at least try to turn their lives around. It's not fair." He responds with kindness and love: "No, not fair at all. Come and enter into my joy. Here's the gift of a brother or sister for you to come to know and to treasure. And I want you to be a free son and not a slave."

Maybe if the Church has stopped having opposition from the religious, from hearers of the Word, I wonder if its because we've stopped following our Lord and have sounded a false gospel; at least if people have heard from us a false gospel. "You have to at least try. You have to repent, you have to give it your best at going and sinning no more, then the Lord will forgive you." Whereas the gospel that upset Saul, together with all the lovers of the Law among the first century Jews, was rather: "Where are you accusers? Neither do I condemn you; now go and sin no more. Take heart, your sins are forgiven!" Do you hear the vital difference?

People loved by God, I dare say that if WE honestly proclaimed the Christ whose love upon His cross simply reaches out and continuously embraces each of us and absolutely everyone else, just as we and they actually are, and without any conditions or limits; if we learned from Him to embrace and welcome each fellow sinner and not imply to that person how they need to change or at least try, in order to be loved, but trust that the love of Christ in which we hold them tight is the power — the ONLY power that ever changes a person, then it wouldn't be long before the outcries would happen again: "What are you all up to!?! You're not taking sin seriously! You've got to fix people; you can't just love them. What are you thinking!" Wouldn't that be a blessed thing? Not merely to have the opposition from the world that arises when we proclaim God's Law, but to have the opposition from the religious that arises when we preach the authentic Gospel? May God grant us such troubles and may they come soon! Amen.



Please stand. We continue with the Kyrie on page 227

An Interesting Piece on Gottesdiesnt

By Dr. Stephenson, addressing why Lutherans (who stand with our Confessions) ought to care and care a great deal about the trouble that is brewing among our Roman brothers and sisters. Give it a read and let Dr. Stephenson know your thoughts in the comments section:

https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/2018/5/10/church-fellowship-is-eucharistic-fellowship-and-vice-versa-common-ground-or-bone-of-contention

Action packed

That's how the weekend was around here. Friday afternoon, soon-to-be son-in-law, Andrew Ibisch became Dr. Andrew Ibisch. I missed the festivities with work, but Cindi and Bekah were there, as well as all Andy's family. That evening we headed up to Springfield Illinois for our usual pinochle evening and dinner with the Van Ulfts and Klingers. Saturday, David and kids arrived early, and work commenced on a dinner. All Andy's family (except for Becky) came over in the afternoon. I think we had 17 here that day for the meal. David worked on the meat (brats, burgers, hotdogs), Cindi and Bekah prepared several side dishes. Yours truly helped entertain grandchildren and was appropriately decorated:

After the meal, I ran to town to do some last minute shopping for Mother's Day. We finished the day with some Downton. Today we headed to Church for Exaudi (LOVE the hymns for this last Sunday of Easter). We got home and David set to work again, with Bekah helping. He made fish tacos. We were all skeptical, but he swore they were amazing and Meaghan backed him up. Long story short: amazing is too weak a word. We devoured them! Here's the feast set in honor of the mothers: Cindi, Meaghan, and Lois.

(And please, notice David's tongue. This is surely an odd genetic quirk. He is just like his great grandma, Nana, who always stuck her tongue out when she was concentrating on any work at hand!). 

Bekah worked hard at the cleanup and then we headed out to the pool

Oliver and Meaghan, Opa and Lois, opted to stay inside, but the pool was really great. A bit more quiet pool time for Cindi and I after everyone left (you know it's bad when you wake yourself up snoring in the pool), and then we watched a bit more Downton. Sadly, it is coming to the end again. 

So it was a busy, crazy, wonderful weekend. And I still can't believe we got to enjoy the pool the first and second weekends of May. And the craziness ratchets up as we head toward the weekend of the wedding and the arrival of out of town guests. So very much to thank God for!

Such a beautiful gospel...

...must read. Enjoy:

https://da2120.wordpress.com/

Today’s Chapel Homily: Ephesians 5:15–21

Chapel 5.2.18

Commemoration of St. Athanasius, the man who stood against the world to proclaim that Jesus is one with the Father, of the same substance, God of God and Light of Light, who suffered much for that confession and refused to compromise it, thanks be to God! And today we have the joy of welcoming the participants in the LCEF High School Entrepreneur Competition. Welcome and best wishes to each of you as you persuasively share your bright ideas and good solutions!

Our liturgy today is the Service of Prayer and Preaching. Hymnals are under the chairs in front of you. We turn to page 260. Please stand.

Reading:

Ephesians 5:15–21 (ESV): 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Homily

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I hope you will pardon a redo of the text, but if I were trying to get its meaning into English, it would run rather along these lines:

Watch out how you're walking, not like blind lost fools who don't know where they're headed, but as people with smarts who know exactly the destination of this trip called life. So don't get side-tracked in all the diversions, because these days the diversions are massively enticing and they meet you at every turn. So don't be dummies. Grasp what the Lord's will is. And it's not getting plastered with wine (or anything like that), because that never furthers the journey, that's just a waste and you know it. Instead, let God intoxicate you with His Spirit as He keeps pouring Him into you and as a result you open your mouths and talk to each other and all kinds of music erupts: psalms and hymns and spirit songs, singing with your mouths but above all tuned in to the vibe of the Lord in your heart, so that thanksgiving resonates, literally rings out from you all the time and for every last thing to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and remembering in the fear of Jesus, —because He's the Lord, not you—to be humble and so dump your own agenda for others and adopt His.

Okay, so that's not a good translation. It's not even a paraphrase, but it's my best shot at getting us into the mind of Paul this morning.

Watch how you walk. Don't know about you, but I love walking, and do it most every single day. And I have a goal. Gotta get meet my vitality numbers. If I don't hit 10K, the wife and I will walk around the inside of our house in circles. Yeah, we're that silly. And Paul's pointing out how easy it is to do that in life itself. We forget where we're headed and end up going nowhere. Isaiah 35 is one of my favorite passages. It talks about where we're headed as coming home to Zion. And that's sweet. But there's more. I think Paul wants you to see the open arms of your Jesus, waiting for you. Waiting to hold you. Waiting to show you all that He died and rose again to give you. He's your goal. Those open arms. Stay focused on them, Paul is saying. And he knows how easily it is to forget that. To get distracted, diverted by all the sideshows, and so to waste what life is here for. Life is not here for you to down the third martini or smoke the fourth bowl of weed. You ever watch a person who's high or drunk try to walk, let alone dance with rhythm and grace? Me either. The Father's got something bigger and better for you than that or any other diversion of this life. He's given you Jesus. And to get you to your Jesus, the Father pours out the Spirit. Get drunk on Him, Paul says, swallow Him down again and again.

Can't help but wonder if Paul was thinking about the story that John tells in chapter 7, when the great day of the feast arrives and Jesus disrupts the liturgy right as they're pouring out the water. Are you thirsty? Then you need to come to me and let the one who believes in me drink, for as the Scripture say, out of His heart will flow rivers of living water. John adds: This He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.

Drink down some Spirit then. In the LXX of the 23 Psalm, the text doesn't say that my cup overflows, it says, and His cup of inebriation, how sweet it is! That's the Spirit!

And the Spirit he gets us going, moving, walking in step with Jesus and toward Jesus with music. He wants us sing it to each other. So don't be one of those lame Christians who plants their posterior in a pew and scowls in silence at the hymn book as music is coaxing you to move. Music is a we thing, not a me thing. All the verbs here are running in the second person plural. Y'all open those mouths and use them to sing God's Word into each other. Yes, you. You know who you are. The Spirit's vibes attune us to the beating heart of God Himself. You know, I said I like to walk. I've lately discovered Lindsey Stirling and her magic violin and now she's what I walk to most days and have you ever noticed how when you're walking with music, the music changes how you walk. You move your body in synch with the vibes that are washing over you. Paul says that's how it is with the Spirit and it shows up not just in what we say to each other and sing to each other, but he mentions two things that mark the person who is grooving with the Spirit:

Thanksgiving. Everything is gift. All the time. Never stops. The person whose heart beats with God and in whom the Spirit sings, that's a life that's got eyes open to see the gift that is Jesus to whom we're headed AND how all encompassing He is. In the twin letter to the one we read from today, in Colossians, Paul says everything hangs together in Him and that He is everything and in everything. The point of it all. The heartbeat of Jesus is the music of the cosmos; it rings through it all and was opened right there on the tree when He poured out His blood: I love you. I forgive you. You are precious to me. You are mine. Forever. I will never let anything separate you from me. It's the most amazing love song ever sung, and when you hear it and your heart begins to beat with its rhythm, you realize that His gifts shower down on you nonstop. And your life fills up and overflows with gratitude. If He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not along with Him freely give us all things? Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!

So thanksgiving, but also humility. The vibe of Jesus is humble. It puts the kibosh on using others, manipulating them, insisting on your own will and getting it by hook or by crook. That gets to die in the fear of Christ (which for some unknown reason the ESV softens to reverence; it's not reverence, it's phobos; fear like a phobia), in the fear of Christ we put ourselves in service to others and ask them: Tell me what I can do to help you here, what would be a blessing to you now? There's no fear here of being turned into a doormat. There's only the fear of not pleasing the One who went to the Cross for us, the One who is the Lord and who invites our lives into doxology also in the way we treat each other.

I think in this passage from Ephesians 5, Paul was hearing the melody and beat of Isaiah 35. We're marching to Zion. Marching home. Home to Jesus with His wide open arms. So no getting distracted by what's going on beside the way, all that's beside the point. And for heaven's sake, help each other along as we walk arm in arm by singing the songs that vibrate with the heart-beat of God in human flesh. A heart that began beating in the Virgin's womb, felt silent on Golgotha, but that now beats forevermore, filled with a love that animates this universe, inspires our song and calls us home to endless thanksgiving and humble service.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Hymn: 669 "Come We That Love the Lord"

For all who cry out for the healing of Christ upon their bodies especially Roger, Ruth, Allen, Jan, and those we name in our hearts…. Let us pray to the Lord: R.

For Pr. Roger and Amy James in Sri Lanka and for all missionaries that Christ would sustain them in the difficulties they encounter, fill their hearts with His joy, and make them lively witnesses to His resurrection, let us pray to the Lord: R.

For the work of LCEF in fostering a spirit of innovative service among the young people of the church, let us pray to the Lord: R.

Today’s Homily

Service of Prayer and Preaching, p. 260ff.

Reading: 1 Cor. 15:12–28

1 Corinthians 15:12–28 (ESV): 12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "all things are put in subjection," it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. 

Responsory: p. 263

Homily

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A couple months ago someone said it to me again. I'd heard it a thousand times before: "I just don't know how those without faith get through it." And I remember that it hit me rather like a ton of bricks that I don't believe what that implies. I don't believe that our faith makes facing death easier. In fact, I think our faith makes it harder. 

We are surrounded by people who are convinced that death is simply the last stage of life. That it may send you off on a journey or it just may be the end of you. Either way, it's fine. To have lived and loved and breathed and known others and been loved, hey, what more could you ask for? Like Socrates sipping the hemlock in complete equanimity, like those who have been catechized by John Lennon's song Imagine. Death happens. It's natural. It's all good. That's NOT hard. That's easy.

You want hard? You stand by the coffin of someone you love and you look long and hard at that body which no amount of makeup from the undertaker can disguise as being, to quote the Munchkins, not just really dead, but really most sincerely dead. To stand by that and say: Nevertheless this body will be raised again. And to believe that. That's not just hard. That's impossible. That's crazy. 

You want the proof? Read the New Testament. That entire collection of documents is about a bunch of guys having their minds blown by seeing a man they knew and loved die, really die, dead and buried dead, and then encountering him again. Not his spirit, not his mind, but his body. Yeah, doing weird stuff with that body that they couldn't begin to fathom, but THE fact that just seemed so impossible was that it was his real body, the one with the prints of the nails and the hole in the side. His body, not just animated like a zombie, but incorruptible. Alive forevermore. Yeah, they KNEW it sounded crazy. They KNEW it sounded impossible. They KNEW it was hard, not easy. And none better than the man who wrote the words of our reading today.

He was convinced it was all fraud. Pure and simple. A lie. But then he too had the experience. Saw him. Heard him. Alive, not dead. In that body. And everything he'd ever thought about God, himself, the world, it flew out the window in that instant when the formerly dead Jew, in shining glory, knocked him off his high horse and made him with the others a witness to the resurrection.

Okay, so Jesus is raised from the dead. But what does that mean? What are its implications? What it mean for the dead body of the one you love? What does it mean for you in your failing flesh? That's where the Corinthians were. Apparently the idea had even taken hold that those who died before the glorious Appearing of Christ again, they were just lost. Too bad, so sad. As though there were no resurrection of the rest of the dead. Paul's like: No, No, NO! Look, if there is no resurrection, then Jesus Himself is not raised and the witness we've been giving about God raising Him from death is a LIE and we are then of all men most to be pitied, going around lying about God. Heaven's sake! No resurrection of the dead, no resurrection of Jesus. That's Paul's point. 

And then BUT. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. So sins forgiven, death destroyed. And he's just the first fruits. The start, there's more to follow. Cause just like everyone died in Adam, everyone's going to live in Christ. But we won't see it until that appearing, and then we'll see. Christ, those who died in Him alive forevermore, and the generation alive at that moment changed, as the "last enemy" is destroyed forever.

Not easier. Harder. Crazy! Who can believe it? Even the Apostles struggled. Don't you love that bit in Matthew 28. When they saw Him, they worshipped, but some doubted, right before sending them out to make disciples of all nations with the news of His resurrection and all it brings? Wrapping your mind around the resurrection IS the New Testament. The Apostles and Evangelists, they are not writers of fairy tales. They didn't shed their blood for some silly story they concocted after too much wine. They shed their blood in the conviction that they had encountered the supreme instance where truth was stranger than fiction. Christ lives. In His body. Forever. You will live. In your body. Forever. Death has been destroyed; death will be destroyed. 

Their proclamation still resounds. No, our faith doesn't make death easier. Won't let you make it easier. Death is never your friend. Don't try to make peace with it. It's not natural and not a part of life. It's the invader, an enemy but an enemy that Christ has already destroyed in Himself and will destroy in you on the day of His appearing. The New Testament proclaims something like this: Christ's resurrection has chopped the head off Death and it's running around like it's still got a head, but you'll be there when it keels over. And you'll see it. With the eyes of your body. For yes, it is true: alleluia, alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia. 

Hymn:486 "If Christ Had Not Been Raised from Death"

Prayers: Ruth, Roger, Allen, Jan, Military Chaplain Paul Weber

Today’s Chapel Homily

Prayer and Preaching, p. 265

Reading:

A reading from Hebrews 13:

20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

Responsory

Hymn: #475 "Good Christian Friends"

Homily

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the ancient form of the words of institution used in the church at Rome, part of today's reading finds its way onto the lips of Jesus as He is giving His Supper to the disciples on Maundy Thursday. Listen: this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant. Have you ever pondered how absolutely odd it is to speak of the covenant as both NEW and ETERNAL? How can it be both? I think, the answer to that touches the very heart of the revelation of Christ. 

When Jesus speaks of the blood of the new covenant or testament, he's obviously announcing the fulfillment of that prophesy in Jeremiah 31. You remember it, right?

What's new in the new covenant is its unilateral nature. It's not iffy. It's not, IF you, then I, AND IF you don't, then you better watch out cause then I most certainly will... that's the Moses covenant. And it leaves hearts quaking because we know we haven't done.  

Instead, with the New Covenant all the action is mercy and it all ends up being God's.  But here's the whole joy: what showed up NEW in the history of God's people on that night when Jesus fulfilled the prophesy of Jeremiah 31 by reaching his disciples the new covenant in His blood is the joyous "aha" that that's what had been on the heart of God from before He created a thing: eternally on His heart. In fact, eternally His heart. This is what I'll do for you, I'll write my law on your heart so that you want to do it and you will know me as I really am, your God and you my people, because, you see, I'll forgive all your iniquity and I will remember your sins no more. That's how you'll know me. That's how you'll know my heart. That's the gift of the new and eternal covenant in my blood.

So the Benediction that we heard as our reading kind of wraps up the whole book of Hebrews, which has all been about how the new thing that shows up in Jesus is so much BETTER than the old thing under the Mosaic covenant because the new thing in Jesus actually ends up being an ETERNAL thing. And so the whole of the old as it limped along and was passing away, prefigured and pointed toward the perfection of what God was up to in Jesus. Listen to it again:

20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

The God of peace. Peace because of the blood of the eternal covenant. Peace comes from knowing He's not fickle in His commitment to you. That new covenant blood cries out: "You cannot make me hate you. I love you. I forgive you. You are mine. Eternally. Forever. You belong to me. It doesn't hang on you and your doing or not doing, your right speaking or thinking or anything. It hangs on me. And this blood seals the deal forever. As I raised the shepherd so I will raise the sheep from death, do not fear." Now that's peace. And it's out of that peace being planted right into your heart with His blood that God prepares for you every good thing. Every good thing is IN that blood. That new and eternal covenant blood of Jesus. And as it goes into you, it changes you. God works in you so that you WANT to do His will. Not grudgingly like a slave and not even poutily like a rebellious kid displaying the truth of original sin, but out of sheer joy as when you want to please the person whose love surprised and delighted you. 

And it all comes with the blood. Now when you hear blood, never hear an idea. It's not an idea or theory about blood that saves you. It's blood, real blood, blood from real veins, blood that came from a real body, His body, yet blood that carries with it a new and yet eternal covenant. And so His blood is not a dead thing. It's not like all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain. It's not even like the blood of Abel and all his kin whose blood cries to heaven for justice. No. The living blood of Jesus speaks a better word than that. His new and eternal covenant blood, cries out: forgiven wholly, forgiven entirely, forgiven forever, what sins? I remember them no more. You are mine now. You are mine always and forever. And I created you to pour this forgiving love over you and into you with my blood. 

And that's how you come to know Him as He really is. And it's a new revelation. But part of the new is the shocking realization that that's what has always been His heart. For you. 

Oh, people loved by God, when they rejected Him, the Jewish leaders cried out: His blood be on us and on our children. And His heart's desire was exactly that. That His new covenant blood would ever belong to them and to you and to us all. May you ever revel in the blood, blood of the new and eternal covenant, with all that it carries your way. 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Litany...

...especially for Roger, Ruth, Allen and Jan and Ezariah, and military chaplain Joseph Watson. 

NT Canticle

Making the Case

Join us!

It glimmered

But for a blink of an eye in time, yet this is the Eucharistia from Sweden under King John III (1576). Thanks to Dr. Tighe for sending along a copy of the Red Book. I would never have dreamed I would one day own a copy of this gem:

During Offering:

I wash my hands in innocence, O Lord, and go to Your altar, that I may declare with a voice of thanksgiving and tell of Your wondrous works.

After Offering:

Almighty, eternal God, Heavenly Father, You have promised us the Spirit of grace and intercession. We beg You, grant us grace, that according to Your commandment and promise, we may call upon You in spirit and in truth. Let Your Holy Spirit govern our hearts, for without You we cannot please You.

We humbly pray You and heartily desire, then, most merciful Father that through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, You would graciously accept our prayers and hear our petitions for Your holy universal Church, that You would grant it peace and govern it throughout the world, together with all government, spiritual or civil, or whatever sort or name it may be, and also all true Christians who love and confess the true catholic and Apostolic faith. 

O Lord God, who willed that Your Son's holy and most worthy Supper should be to us a pledge  and promise of Your mercy; awaken our heart, that we who celebrate His Supper may have a salutary remembrance of Your benefits and humbly give You our true and dutiful thanks, glory, and praise forever. Help us Your servants and Your people that we may in this Supper remember the holy, pure, immaculate and blessed sacrifice of Your Son, which He made upon the cross for us, and worthily celebrate the mystery of the New Testament and eternal covenant. Bless and sanctify with Your Holy Spirit's power that which is prepared and set apart for this holy use, bread and wine, that rightly used they may be for us the holy body and blood of Your Son, the food of eternal life, which we desire and yearn for with greatest longing. Through the same, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Preface and Canon:

The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.

Lift up your hearts to God. We lift them up.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right and fitting.

Truly it is right and fitting, appropriate and salutary that we should at all times give thanks to You, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God at all times, but especially and chiefly on this day on which our Paschal Lamb is offered. For He is the very Lamb who has taken away the sin of the world. By His death, death has been destroyed and by His resurrection life has returned. 

Who, that we might never forget His benefits, on the night that He was betrayed celebrated a supper during which He took bread into His holy and venerable hands, lifted His eyes to heaven, gave thanks to You, His holy Father, almighty and eternal God, blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples and said: "Take and eat; this is My body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me."

Likewise also after the Supper, He took the cup into His holy and venerable hands, looked up to heaven, gave thanks to You, His holy Father, almighty and eternal God, blessed and gave it to His disciples and said: "Take and drink you all of this. For this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me."

Therefore with angels and archangels, with thrones and dominions, with all the hosts of heaven, we sing the song of praise that has no end to Your honor, saying:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

And so we remember, O Lord God, this blessed command of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, His holy passion and death, His resurrection and ascension. In Your boundless mercy You have sent and given Him to us that He might be an offering for our sins, and that He by His one sacrifice on the cross pay the price of our redemption, fulfill Your righteousness, and bring to perfection such an offering as might serve for the salvation of all Your chosen until the end of the world. The same, Your Son, the same offering which is a pure, holy, and immaculate sacrifice, we beg You to set before us for our reconciliation, shield, and defense and covering against Your wrath and against the terrors of our sin and of death. Grant that we may now receive it with faith and offer it before Your glorious majesty with our humble supplications. For these Your great benefits we give You fervent thanks with heart and mouth, yet not as we ought, but as we are able.

And we humbly beg You through Your Son whom You have in Your godly and secret counsel set before us as our sole Mediator, to look upon us and our prayers with Your mercy and pitying eye. Grant that they may come to Your heavenly altar before Your divine majesty and be pleasing to You, that all we who partake at this altar of the blessed and holy food and drink, the holy bread of eternal life and the cup of eternal salvation, which is the holy body and blood of your Son, may be filled with all heavenly benediction and grace.

We pray You likewise, O Lord, our God, that You would be pleased to grant us poor sinful people who trust in Your manifold mercies, that we may be received among Your holy apostles, martyrs, and all Your saints, among whom we beg You to welcome us, not due to our deserving, but due to Your compassion, for You are He who forgives our sins and failings; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

By whom, O Lord, You ever create, sanctify, quicken, bless and grant us every good thing. Through Him, with Him, and in Him be all honor and glory and praise to You, almighty God, Heavenly Father, with the Holy Spirit, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.

Taught by Your saving precepts and formed by divine institution, we cry to you and say: Our Father...deliver us from evil. Deliver us, O Lord, from all evil, both past, present and future. Grant us gracious peace in our days that beneath Your merciful protection and defense, we may be set free from sins and kept safe from all affliction, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Homily upon Colossians 3

Chapel 04.05.18

Invocation

Collect of the Day: Almighty God, through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, You overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life. We humbly pray that we may live before You in righteousness and purity forever; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Psalm 16

Reading: Colossians 3:1–7

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.

Hymn: 459/460

Homily

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." I think we sometimes have been tempted to hear that as always be thinking about angels and harps, streets of gold and the endless hymn of the redeemed, and not about planning what you need to pick up at Aldi's or how you're going to get the kids to their ball game and find supper for your family. Can you see trying it out on your boss? "I'm sorry I missed that deadline; you see, I was thinking about the things above."

And so you might be tempted to just dismiss St. Paul's injunction as just so much pious mumbo-jumbo. Things above indeed! When you can't even remember all the things below that you HAVE to attend to. 

I think, though, the angels with their harps and bowls of incense and the streets of gold and such, might not actually have been what St. Paul had in view. The great Revelation of St. John wouldn't have been written for some years till after St. Paul had penned today's words to the little flock of believers that gathered in Colossae, a little flock, but the way, whom he'd never even met in person. 

So what do you think he meant? To set your mind on the things above? I wonder if we'd get nearer to what he was inviting them into if we thought of "the things above" more along the lines of "from the perspective of Him who is above, Your Heavenly Father." He, after all, had just been writing to them about the danger of an earthly way of thinking. He reminded them of their baptism into Christ where they were buried to that whole old way and raised with Jesus through faith in God's powerful work. He reminded them that God made them, who were dead in their sins, alive together with Jesus by forgiving them all their trespasses. So they were forever beyond the religion of asceticism: don't touch this, don't eat that, and so on to try to make God love them. Instead, and this is right where our text picks up, you've been raised with Christ and so you seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. You seek His peace, His joy, His Spirit, His wisdom and His love. You seek what is His, because you seek HIM. 

Set your mind on the things above, then; learn to think with God's own perspective. His perspective of you and of others and of this world. Learn to see through the eyes of love. Learn to live out of the calm of His unshakable peace. Learn to delight in the secret and inner joy that in Christ your old life is dead and buried and in Him a brand new life is before you. His life. A life that will never end for you.

Paul was urging the Colossians and us with them to live toward the glory that will shine in us on that Day when Christ, our life, appears. And that means a life that is cut off from the old worldly way: the sexual immorality (if it itches, scratch it); the impurity and passion and evil desires and covetousness, which is tantamount to idolatry: seeking life in the persons or STUFF of this world and turning away from where real life is found: in Christ.

Set your mind on the things above; have the MIND that is from above and learn to see yourself, others, and all the stuff as God sees it; which is as it really is. You are people who have death behind them. You are people who enjoy a life that will never be taken from you. You are people who have been clothed in Christ. Eyes of love, then. People are not objects for you to use or abuse; your own body is not an object for you to use; the stuff of this world, every bit of it, seen for what it is: not the source of life or happiness or contentment, but a gift from the Heavenly Father, to sustain you as you journey to the full realization of the glory that is already hidden inside you and that is so much greater than the whole world itself! 

But what about the stuff I need to pick up at Aldi's and getting the kids to the game and the family fed and my work deadlines and all of that? Use your sanctified imagination for a minute. Breathe. Be still. Now shift the mindset. Shift to: I am in Christ. The old way is dead. I have been raised to a new life in Him. My sins are forgiven and they have no power over me. My performance or failure to perform cannot diminish the slightest bit the vast love that God has for me in His Son. The life of fretting and worry is buried; it's forever behind me. I am at peace. Time itself flows toward me as a gift from Him. I will attend to what or who it brings me, one at a time, in the peace that flows from Christ's love in the joy of His presence and I will seek to serve this day in the power of his love. And so with mind set on things above: you shop, you transport the kids, you cook, you work, you live. You literally live in Christ. And anything that doesn't fit in that peace, that joy or that love, well, it's not part of the life you've been placed into, is it? 

Now, one last thought: he'd hardly have been reminding them to do this if they weren't doing (or at least tempted to doing) its opposite. So yes, to people just like you and me: distracted and unfocused and fretful, to us, Paul props open a door from which streams a bright light of resurrection, serene, tender and loving beyond our wildest dreams. That's our real life. He invites us to practice living in it now, for it's where we will live for all eternity. And for that, all glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, at Aldi's and on the soccer field and in the kitchen and working on the project for your boss with the deadline, all glory to the Trinity now and ever and to the ages of ages. On things above. Love. Peace. Joy. Mind set. Amen.

And it is in that mindset that we join in prayer:

Prayers

In peace, let us pray to the Lord. R.

For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord. R. 

For the peace of the whole world, for the wellbeing of the church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord, R.

For this holy house and for all who offer here their worship and praise, let us pray to the Lord, R.

For Matthew, our Synod's President, for the Presidents of all our districts, for Pr. Richard Wokoma and all missionaries, for all our pastors in Christ, for all servants of the Church and for all the people, let us pray to the Lord, R.

For Donald, the President of our country, for all public servants, for the government and those who protect us, that they may be strengthened and upheld in every good deed, let us pray to the Lord, R.

For those who cry to God for healing and peace, especially those we have been asked to remember: Roger and Ruth, Allen and Jan, the family of Sam Cuputa, and those we name in our hearts…., let us pray to the Lord, R.

For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger and need, let us pray to the Lord, R.

Taught by our Lord and trusting His promises, we are bold to pray: Our Father…

The grace of our Lord Jesus + Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all! Amen.

Bird says

NOT my picture of Easter Monday. 

That Easter Dinner

Deserves a post of its own. We decided to do something quite different this year and settled on a Greek theme. So here's the rundown:

Appetizers

Goat cheese

Olives

Veggies

Hummus 

Tzatziki Sauce

Pitas

Main Course

Greek Salad

Saganaki (flaming cheese)

Lamb Balls with Tzatziki

Felafel

Spanikopita

Homemade Pitas

A fine red wine 

Dessert

Limoncello

Baklava 

Ice Cream

It was a team effort, so no one was too exhausted. As usual, though, David and Cindi were the star chefs. They truly outdid themselves. We decided from now on THIS is Easter. 

Easter this and that...

...as always, the Triduum and Paschal feast at St. Paul's were amazing and wonderful. Just some flash points of joy (hardly exhaustive): David's awesome job on the Schalk Passion of St. John as the evangelista... Cindi's "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" with organ and strings... Kantor's preludes and postludes and especially her Widor Toccata today... Luther's absolutely lovely "I Shall Not Die" motet (his only motet!)... Singing Palestrina's O Bone Jesu... Hallelujah Chorus with strings and organ... Singing LOTS of Luther like Maundy Thursday's "O Lord, We Praise Thee" and today "Christ Jesus Lay"... Singing LOTS of Gerhardt like "A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth" and "Awake My Heart with Gladness"... Singing BOTH Fortunatus pieces on Good Friday... Getting to hear BOTH our pastors preach excellent homilies on Good Friday and Easter at either service (and give us joyous homilies on the other days too)... The strings, the brass, the bells, the organ and the congregation belting out joy... And our wonderfully Greek themed Easter feast with Opa, David and Meaghan, Lydia, Henry, and Oliver, Rebekah and Andy:

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Blessed Resurrection from the Weedons.