Holy Cross Exterior

Holy Cross is a member of the SELC district of the LCMS. It was founded as a Slovak church that was brought into the LCMS along with other Slovak congregations. Last week they had an ethnic festival, and it sounded like they had a lot of fun.

We began a Discipleship series in Bible Study. The Bible implies different things about discipleship in different parts of the New Testament, and that may lend itself to some of the confusion about discipleship today. Matthew 10:24 and 13:52 speak of discipleship as a relationship between teacher and student, while Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34 speak of it as a way of life. Acts 14:21 speaks of disciples as people who were preached to.

The first thing that struck me upon arriving at the church was that all the doors were open. I would have thought more doors would have been closed given the urban location. It was cool that they could do it.

The Divine Service was TLH p. 15. Incense wisped lightly from a bowl on the altar, but the scent was quite strong. The open windows made the incense tolerable, but they also meant that sound didn’t bounce back to the congregation. We had to sing out. Thankfully my voice was with me this morning. They had church bells that announced the beginning of service.

I liked the fact that more communion hymns were on the list than were actually sung. I like this as a contingency, rather than the congregation running out of hymns to sing during communion. I don’t like sitting while someone else sings.

Pr. Kelly preached on Matthew 18:15-17:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

So far the text.

Holy Cross Pulpit

Our many church, district, and synodical by-laws and constitutions contain these words that I just read. Usually it falls under the heading of “Church Discipline” and ends up being nothing short of a legalization of the Gospel. The text deals with the issue of gaining a brother back, but it is generally invoked when we’ve grown tired of a brother, when we disagree with a brother, and when we want to get rid of a brother. That being said, there is a more fundamental issue to consider — an issue that requires attention well in advance of forgiving the brother. For forgiveness requires a very, very, healthy belief in sin. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Now forgiveness is something that we all believe in — Christians and non-Christians. We believe especially in it when it is something that we can be able to do to us. Sin, on the other hand, is something noone believes in, including those in the church, unless it is something done against us. We use words and phrases like “sinful,” “unclean,” “sinned in thought, word, and deed,” sinned “by what we have done and by what we have left undone.”

All these words and phrases swirl all around us, trying to tell us something about ourselves, but our modern sensibilities are uniquely adapted to filter out minor annoyances like sin, thus rendering the words nonsense. Completely harmless. How, for instance, are you unclean? What have you left undone? At the end of the day, do you really consider yourself a “poor, miserable being?” More to the point, what difference does it make in our lives? Think to yourself for a moment what would happen if the church took sin seriously? What would think, for example, if I refuse to commune a family member who had not been to church in months, but came for a holiday? What if I had said that it wasn’t a good witness to drink beer out in front of the church while working at the church during festival?

How about you? What would happen if you took sin seriously? The kind of sin Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel lesson, personal sin. Sin against a brother or a sister. Would you still grumble about being at the communion table with a brother or sister that you didn’t particularly care for? Would you still consider to talk about a person instead of to a person? And what would happen if I sounded the word of warning that Ezekiel speaks so clearly about (OT Lesson), words spoken with such clarity that no one could ever say, “I never knew this behavior was wrong,” or “He can’t be speaking to me.”

Now here’s the problem. I have to tell you — I’m going off script here for a minute — that this is a sermon, that when I wrote it, it took a great deal out of me, because in large part, I myself have let the Lord down. So this was a tough sermon. The reason why I feel that way is that the same words that God spoke to Ezekiel were also spoken to me during my ordination. “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman,” and more to the point, and you, Kenneth Kelly, are not to be rebellious.

So, you see, the stakes for me are a little higher. If I see a sinful behavior, and then I don’t call it such, I bear responsibility for not warning the brother or the sister. And when you sin and I sin, we have exactly the prophet Ezekiel warned against: a rebellious house. A people so laden with sin that, at least in the book of Ezekiel, they were able to drive God out of his temple. And when God leaves the temple, nothing but sorrow and tears follow. When a house is rebellious, it crumbles and it rots, for Christ is not in its midst.

So let’s not worry too much about the offending brother until we realize that it is you and I. That these same offenses live and grow in us daily. And yet despite the greatness of those offenses, there exists something far greater. There is a restoring — a way to return that lost equilibrium within God’s (unintelligible). The source is Jesus Christ himself, but the restoration promised is conditional. Notice in today’s Gospel lesson Christ does not command that forgiveness be indiscriminate, but rather says, if he acknowledges his fault. This theme is the same throughout the Old Testament: Return to the Lord. But you can’t until you acknowledge that sin is in fact a reality.

Holy Cross Sanctuary

Confession is incarnational. That is to say, it’s alive. It moves. It lives. It breathes. It has its center in Christ our Lord. It’s not a cheap grace, a drive-thru window where you pull up to the speaker and order a super-size forgiveness and pull around to the window and have it handed to us. It’s not a pastoral pat on the back to make a guilty conscience feel better. It was given by Christ as a vehicle whereby the penitent, who truly intends by God’s grace, by God’s grace, to amend their sinful behavior and to make reparation. They receive their absolution with every confidence that the absolution comes from God himself. It’s a means where your heart and my heart is cleansed, making them fit for the Spirit to dwell in. It’s a means whereby the church as a whole is cleansed, making it fit for Christ to dwell in.

With confession comes absolution. God says to you and to me, “I will remember your sin no more.” As far as the East is from the West, that is how far our Lord has removed our sin. And so now I ask, “Have you sinned?” Not in some abstract sense, not original sin, but something real and personal. Something that comes into your minds right now. Have you confessed that sin to God? Have you confessed that sin to the person you may have offended? Is it your intention that by the grace of God you will amend your sinful behavior? Now be very careful about that, because you can lie to me, but you can’t lie to God. So be certain about what you say.

If the Son, whom the Father sent to willingly die for you, has forgiven you, he has cleansed you. He has restored your spirit. Your guilt has been removed. You are sparkling because of Christ’s blood. That is why the baptismal font is where it is. It is a constant reminder of what was done for us and what is yet to be done for us. That’s why the cross in this church has a body on it, as a constant reminder of what that cost was.

Earlier this morning we had corporate confession. Each time that I have to say my part, “I as a called and ordained servant of the Word,” I almost choke on those words, because those words are so humbling. To stand before you as a called and ordained servant of the Word, me, of all people, to stand in front of this congregation and have the privilege of announcing God’s grace and God’s forgiveness to each and every one of you. Amen.

I got there a little early, and that allowed me to take some pictures of the exterior and sanctuary.

To start things off, Stan led the group in the sanctuary with the LSB Service of Daily Prayer for Individuals and Families. We sang the last three verses of LSB 766, “Our Father Who from Heaven Above.”

Redeemer Sign and Cross

For it is of the greatest importance that we esteem Baptism excellent, glorious, and exalted, for which we contend and fight chiefly, because the world is now so full of sects clamoring that Baptism is an external thing, and that external things are of no benefit. But let it be ever so much an external thing, here stand God’s Word and command which institute, establish, and confirm Baptism.

This is an interesting turn of phrase. Some Christians want to call Baptism “external” and thus discard it, but Luther uses “external” to mean objective, and thus integral to Christianity. Also quoting from the Large Catechism:

But insane reason will not regard this, and because Baptism does not shine like the works which we do, it is to be esteemed as nothing.

We cannot see with our eyes what Baptism works, and so it is easy to discount.

Next Pr. Naumann did something that I thought was quite cool. He took the pericopes (bible readings) for today and read through them, pointing out additional things to the class. Today’s readings were Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 and Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32.

Redeemer Chancel

Isaiah 56:1 - About the forgiveness of sins.
56:7 - “I will bring to my holy mountain” God is bringing people to where he is. This has New Testament overtones in Hebrews 12. Today God brings to his people in the Divine Service the application of Christ’s sacrifice for us.
56:8 - “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.” Cross-reference with Jesus’s statement in John 10:16: “I have other sheep not of this fold.”

The Romans pericope is also about grafting Gentiles into the kingdom of God. Verse 32 is quite interesting: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” For me this is an interesting explanation of why the justified still sin.

Divine Service I out of the LSB was used for worship. The audio of Pastor Naumann’s sermon can be found on Redeemer’s sermon audio site. Give it a listen, enjoy his British accent, and hear the Gospel.

There was interesting news during the prayers: Pastor Roger Sterle, whom I had seen preach in Vernal, UT, had accepted a call to a dual parish in Iowa. Maybe there’s a call for a recent M.Div. grad there.

Divine Service I without Holy Communion was offered, with Pastor Buss as the liturgist and Pastor Storck delivering the sermon. The hymns were:

• Opening: 779, “Come My Soul, With Every Care”
• Sermon: 556, “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” (all ten verses )
• Closing: 578, “Thy Strong Word”

During the later service, there would be six children confirmed in the faith. Pastor Storck delivered the following sermon, on John 14:15-21, transcribed:

photo credit: Transfiguration

The instruction was almost complete. They had been together nearly three years as a group: some of them called earlier and others shortly thereafter. Yet they listened all the same. Sometimes not paying attention like they should, but they heard the words of the Shepherd. They heard him call them to himself.

The instruction was almost complete, for those instructions got more difficult to understand towards the end. The words spoken by the teacher by this time were the most difficult to comprehend: The world is going to hate you for Whom you belong to. Outside of the Vine you are not going to produce any good fruit, regardless of what the world tells you. There will be some who believe that whenever they kill you, they think they will be offering a service to God. Sounds like some religious bodies in the world today, doesn’t it? The world will rejoice when you suffer.

Last week’s Gospel text places that in the upper room with Jesus and his disciples, and there we are again, today. Last week we heard those comforting words to Thomas when Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes through the Father except through me.” Only through Christ are we saved.

Our Lord’s last hours with his disciples were ones that left them in fear, for they knew that the Lord was going to leave them. They weren’t going to follow the Lord where he was going, regardless of the insistence of Peter. Yet they weren’t going to be abandoned in these difficult times, when the Lord was not going to be with them, either during those three days where he lay in the tomb, or for the longer time, since he has ascended into heaven, and we still await his coming.

Here again, the gospel text for us today. And know that he will never abandon you.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Thus far the word of our Lord.

It was fairly easy for the disciples to think that they had been abandoned, because Jesus had completely disappeared from their sight after his body was laid in the tomb. It’s fairly easy for us to believe that we also have been abandoned. It surrounds our very selves, everywhere we turn, and look, we see abandonment in the world: parents abandoning children, either at orphanages or even before they are born. Husbands and wives, abandoning one another, divorcing and moving on. Even churches abandoning the true teachings of the Word of God, straying off to follow after itching ears, to be true to other teachings. Parents may even use abandonment for discipline reasons and control over their children. Have you ever heard, and I believe I’ve heard it too: “I’ll leave you behind if you don’t behave yourself!”

But Jesus never used that tactic with his disciples. He never told them that he would abandon them if they didn’t do something for him. He didn’t attach any strings to his word. Hear again, part of our gospel text: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” No strings attached. He promises that he will come back to them. They won’t be left on their own.

We sometimes find ourselves in difficult situations. We conclude that God must have abandoned us, and maybe even our families, as my friends back in Fort Wayne, Peter and Kristen (sp?), as their daughter Vivian (sp?) clings to life in the NICU at the hospital there. The world would say to them: God’s abandoned you. He’s not taking care of your daughter any more.

We’re good at living in despair and feeling like God has abandoned us, as though we didn’t have anything any more. As though we weren’t baptized in the font. As though we didn’t have Christ, or the Father, or even the Holy Spirit. We live our lives as if we didn’t have Jesus’s own words, and the only person that we can blame is ourselves. But we’re good at blaming God for abandoning us. We find ourselves living the world lives. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, just as they are spiritually deserted.

Though we’ve been given the Holy Spirit in the waters of Holy Baptism, how often do we ignore the things that God has given to us? He doesn’t abandon us; we often abandon Him. We can’t believe that the mere Word connected with the holy waters of Baptism can do such great things. Or the Word, connected with mere bread and wine, can bring us Christ’s body and blood. We can’t believe that peace can come through God’s Word.

Job’s three friends wanted him to turn his back on God and abandon Him, because to them it seemed like God could abandon Job. Curse God and die, they tell him. Yet Job knew that even when it looked like God had turned his back on him, he would never curse God, because he knew He was there for him.

We often abandon God by neglecting and misusing the gifts that he has given to us. We all do something such as skipping church on Sunday morning, knowing we have something else better to do that day. We turn our backs by developing a bad attitude about Bible class and Sunday School, that we have little use for the Divine Service on Sunday morning. Where will those temptations lead us? I don’t know where those temptations will lead each one of you or myself. Pastor Buss and myself don’t know where any of those temptations would lead you, if you fall into them. Even your own parents don’t know where those things will lead you. Neither can any of the other parishioners sitting among you today. Only God knows where those temptations will lead you. But God knows that He will remain with you. He will not be the one to depart from you.

Don’t just think that I am picking on you this morning. We all do it. We all abandon the gifts of God, and we do it in those familiar ways, developing that bad attitude, finding it easier to stay home and watch Sunday morning football, or even now, playoff basketball and playoff hockey, rather than looking to God’s gifts given to us in Holy Baptism and in His church. We try to seek peace elsewhere in the world.

photo credit: ktylerconk

We turn our backs on God and what He gives us. We feel that the Holy Spirit is not with us when we aren’t on an emotional high, during the Divine Service, when that sermon doesn’t really move you that morning. We struggle, and we wonder why we didn’t just have the correct words to speak when our friends ask us about our faith. We believe that God must not have been with me in that moment, because the words that I said sure didn’t make any sense to me. Notice how easy it is for us to feel abandoned by God, when there’s no emotional high, and that we can’t remember when Jesus comes to us, when somebody asks, when were YOU converted?

Out of fear, even the disciples locked the door, because they felt that the Lord was no longer watching over them, and the Jews were going to come in and take them.

Therefore, repent, my friends. Repent of that sin, when you have believed that God has abandoned you. Know he has already claimed you as His very own. Repent and know that Christ’s promise to be with us, to the very end of the age, is true, and that he will never turn his back on you. Repent, and hear the gospel. Know that your sins have been forgiven. You are not, and you never will be, alone, while you are in the true faith.

As Christ departed from his disciples and left them for those three days, at his death, and then again, at his ascension as He goes into heaven, He leaves them with the promise which we heard in the gospel lesson, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Jesus is coming even now, The preparations are already being set in order for His return. He came first in the incarnation. He came again in the resurrection and at Pentecost, and he will come again on the last day.

The world believed that it would no longer have to seek Jesus, or deal with his teachings after his death, and for some after his ascension into heaven. You are spiritually alive because Jesus is alive in heaven. For Jesus is the god of the living, and not of the dead. He is the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are alive in faith only because Jesus is alive now. You are alive by faith because Christ has claimed you out of the depths of our original sin, and he has placed his name upon you.

Credit: Pr. Messner

In the Rite of Holy Baptism, the pastor marked each one of you with of the sign of the cross upon your forehead and upon your heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You have been redeemed, washed in the waters of Holy Baptism, when God’s name was placed upon you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hear again the words of verse 20: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” On the day of Pentecost the disciples knew. We have that same intimate knowledge through God’s Word even now. There is an intimate unity between the Father and the Son, and this union is so close that we can’t fully explain it. Even ask the confirmands later today, “Explain to me the Trinity,” and see if they can do it.

The verse tells us about the Father and the Son, but it expresses a union between the Son and us. Our union with Christ is just as close as Christ’s union with his Father. We are as close to the Father as Jesus is to his Father. They won’t abandon you. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, their name has been placed upon you. God the Father forsook his own son on the cross so that he would never forsake you. Take heart.

Credit: Pr. McCain

In our second service today we will have our confirmation class stand and make their profession of faith. Twice they will hear these questions. The first is this: Do you attend to live according to the Word of God and in faith, word, and deed, to remain true to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death? These questions may be bringing back memories of your own confirmation. And again, Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and church, and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it? You can answer both with a hearty, “I do by the grace of God,” because of the gifts that God has already given to you.

You don’t need to fear death at the hand of the world or at the hand of Satan. Your death has already been defeated by our Lord, as we sang in our sermon hymn today. No wonder the disciples and the apostles could stand in the face of death in the book of Acts. Paul could boldly stand in the front of the Aeropagus, as we heard this morning, and proclaim his faith to those priests, even as some doubted it, and they mocked him. Peter, from our epistle lesson, writes:

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;

Even in the face of losing your friends at school for not following along. Even in the face of losing your jobs or being ridiculed out in the world. And even in the face of death, you have nothing to fear. For Christ has given you his Holy Spirit, He has given you another Comforter to watch over you. He has not abandoned you.

Credit: Kiley Campbell

And with the giving of the Comforter, he works through means, in his Word, when you read it or when you hear it, in the Lord’s Supper, in the Holy Ministry, in other Christians when they speak the Word to you, and in you as you speak that very same Word to others. The Spirit always comes to us through means. He always uses means. Preachers. Earthly stuff, like water and words. Bread. Wine. Pastors. People. Through these means the Spirit keeps you in the true faith, and he lays the Word of our Lord on our hearts and minds, so that we would trust him and receive his presence in our lives. Use them often, as you’ve promised to do in your confirmation vows, and as you’ve made your vows many years ago.

And when death’s final hour arrives, whether it be from old age or from someone holding a gun to your head, believe that God is with you, that He has not abandoned you. Even if you die, and we all shall die, know that as Christ’s body was raised from the dead, from the sleep of death, yours will be also.

Take heart, then, my friends. Hold fast. Know that Christ has died for you. He lives again, for you. You will never be alone. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Storck officiated over the baptism of two children before moving to LSB Divine Service I, with Holy Communion. The hymns were:

• Opening: 909, Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation
• Hymn of the Day: 645, Built on the Rock
• Distribution: 620, Jesus Comes Today with Healing; 464, The Strife is O’er, the Battle Done
• Closing: 644, The Church’s One Foundation

Good stuff.

After worship I attended Pastor Storck’s class. They were deep into The Blessings of Weekly Communion, by Kenneth Wieting. This has been a book I’ve been meaning to read myself, and it was a nice preview should I actually go and get the book.

I took notes from Pastor Buss’s sermon on 1 Peter 2:2-10:

(Anecdote about three little pigs told in class, where kid says, “Wow, a talking pig!”)

photo credit: GETA.80

Just as the point of the three pigs is not that there were talking pigs, but that houses should be built out of proper building materials, God has constructed his church in his kingdom with proper materials: solid faith in Jesus Christ and the use of Word and sacraments to build faith.

It is noteworthy that Peter calls us stones instead of bricks. Stones have variety of shape, size, and color as opposed to the uniformity of bricks. God blends us all together to build his temple,

Stones by themselves are dead, and so are you and I in the flesh. Michaelangelo kept several unfinished statues in his studio. He referred to these works as his sculptures kept captive by the surrounding rock. The Bible tells us that we are all slaves to sin. Like the statues, we are captive, unable to walk and break free. Our sinful nature shows up sometimes in our arguing, our putting ourselves first, or our struggles for control. The end result of our sinful nature is God’s wrath. Our sinful disobedience is a stumble toward eternal condemnation.

God has destined us instead for eternal life in the mansion. God chose us to do works, and he made that a reality by sending Christ to die and rise from the dead. Even more so, he joined us to Christ in baptism, giving us not only Christ but his Holy Spirit. Christ is the living stone, precious to God, our supernatural Savior hewn out for our pardon, absolution, and forgiveness.

The stone building we are part of points us to the Cross, and Christ’s blood is like mortar, transforming dead stones to living with forgiveness. We are God’s own treasured possession, made holy and sinless, justified freely by his grace.

God looks at us like a proud papa pulling out the pictures of his kids. He declares us perfect on account of Jesus’s death and resurrection. We are trapped in a tomb of our own iniquity, but God has called us out. We need to remain connected to the Living Stone, through studying the scriptures daily and weekly worshipping and receiving the means of grace.

Peter tells us that we are to be like newborn infants longing for the pure spiritual milk. This is an understatement. Babies don’t just long for milk. They cry. They scream. They latch on and don’t let go.

Christ is not only our cornerstone but our capstone. He is the cornerstone upon which our faith is built. Anything not built on the cornerstone is unstable. As the capstone he also keeps our building of stones from falling apart.

(Anecdote: upon buying a life insurance policy on her husband, a wife asks what would she get if she killed her husband. Agent says, “a life sentence”)

We deserve that life sentence, but the gift of Jesus is ours. He is our true insurance policy.

As stones of the church, we are to daily keep our eyes open for opportunities to tell people about him who called us out of the darkness and to bring them to church.

LCOP has TLH in its pews, but most services consist of bulletin material drawn from Creative Worship with some TLH hymns sprinkled in. The Creative Worship material actually impressed me with how much scripture was in it, but some of the way things were phrased gave the impression that “sins,” not including original sin, was our main problem. There was Corporate Confession and Absolution, slightly tweaked, and the three hymns were actually hymns, just two of them had their words exchanged to go with the service theme. Those two, not being in TLH, provided no music to read, which to me is like reading English without vowels.

They have raised money to buy the Lutheran Service Book, which is good news. They especially liked their TLH hymns lowered a step in key so they could sing it better. The organist was quite enthused about the amount of liturgical material they can use.

After worship, a layperson led a study from Bad Girls of the Bible from WaterBrook Press. This week they talked about the Samaritan woman at the well who had five husbands and was with another. The Gospel message could have been strengthened, but it was better than some studies I’ve seen.

Pastor Lutjens on Good Friday finished a preaching series from the point of view of various trees in the Bible, finishing of course on the cross itself. This Sunday he had one more tree sermon, but he focused this time on the living water that feeds the tree.

The choir is not singing Sunday, but it is singing April 6. If work holds me over the second weekend, it won’t be as cool as being home, but I’ll have a small consolation. They are singing two pieces, one based on Isaiah 53:5. The choir director also directs choir for a high school, and he is quite good.

I have yet to meet the pastor, Rev. R.W. Lutjens. Apparently he is multi-talented, because he maintains a page with programs that he has written for Palm PDAs. He and his wife have also produced albums to fund his way through seminary.

I met up with Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller before church, and he was kind enough to introduce me to some of the congregation. I noticed they had both TLH and LSB in the hymnal racks, and they informed me that they like to switch between the two in order to get used to the new hymnal. I was asked which one I liked better, and I said that the LSB was more readable and offers new opportunities to enhance liturgical worship, but the TLH at times comes through with prettier though more challenging music. It was probably good for them to keep both.

This morning was p. 5 out of the TLH. I don’t recall noticing before how the season of Lent really puts a dent in that service: the only long musical setting that doesn’t get skipped for Lent is the Offertory.

After worship, Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller taught a packed Bible study class, first taking questions on the liturgy and the Bible readings, then going into Matthew 21-22. The Old Testament lesson was Genesis 18:1-9, and from that lesson he detailed how Abraham was actually talking to the pre-incarnate Jesus in the passage. Supporting evidence for this “Christophany” includes the Gospel lesson, John 8:46-59, especially verse 56, and also includes John 1:18.

Pr. Wolfmueller preached a cool sermon on the Epistle lesson, Hebrews 9:11-15. He published his notes in a worship folder insert.

Another member of the congregation, Mike Brown, has his own blog called Hot Fudge Sunday. Small world. if Brown or the pastor update their blogs, I’ll list them in the side bar.

Thank you, Pr. Lehmann, for the recommendation, and thank you to the Wolfmuellers for their hospitality. There is a small chance that I’ll be coming back to the Rockies for retraining. If that happens, I will probably return — unless Pr. Lehmann bribes me with another chanting opportunity.

The study was lay-led, working from “Galatians” from NavPress.

The service was LW Divine Service II, setting one. A couple of LSB hymns were printed, “Voices Raised to You We Offer” (LSB 795) and “The Lamb, The Lamb” (LSB 547). I found an LSB in the choir loft where I was sitting so I could check out the four parts.

When the latter hymn first came out, I was in Kansas City, and I vaguely remember it being tied to the LCMS National Youth Gathering (or whatever it was called at the time). The sheet music actually had some decent music. Looking at the hymn in the LSB, half of the tenor line didn’t make it into the music. I sang the original line anyway.

I had the privilege of chanting the Introit, the “Kyrie”, and the Preface. Pastor Scherer informed me the LW Kyrie was from the Great Litany of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, thus he preferred not to call it the Kyrie.

Thanks to Pastor Scherer for the privilege. He gave me the option of choosing the Introit from the One-Year Lectionary or the Three-Year Series. I chose the former, which is drawn from Isaiah 66:10 and Psalm 28:6-7a, 8-9.

Vespers was the order of the evening, spoken because again we were short a couple of organists. The pianist played three hymns pretty well, and I was able to sing the tenor line on LW 171, “Holy God, We Praise Your Name.”

Pastor Scherer concluded his “Image of God” series with “In the Image of the Spirit.” The Image of the Spirit manifests itself in testifying to Christ’s ministry and to being a child of God, acknowledging spiritual gifts, continuing the teaching role of Jesus (John 16:7-11), expressing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-25), and making conscious spiritual choices (1 Cor. 2:15).

The first picture is the chancel of the present sanctuary. The light was too low for my camera to do it justice. The second picture is the altar they had in the previous building. They brought it into the present sanctuary and set it to the side, forming a smaller chapel area.

Before church there was a soup dinner, and someone had made a bean soup with HoneyBaked Ham pieces in it — quite good. I did the standard meet and greet, chatting about snow in California among other things. After dinner we checked out the lunar eclipse, the complete darkening happening right as worship began.

Worship consisted of Lutheran Worship p. 273, Responsive Prayer II, with Holy Communion following. There isn’t any opportunity for singing in the Responsive Prayer services, but we sang three hymns. They are considering a switch to the LSB, which I recommend. I asked if they needed a cantor any time between now and March 7, and I was offered the singing of the Introit, the “Kyrie”, and the Preface from LW DS II, Setting One, all on March 2. I don’t have class that Sunday.

During worship, Pastor Henry Scherer offered an unsolicited petition during the prayers for myself and my family, for blessings and safe travels. That was quite kind.

Pastor Scherer’s message focused on the Image of Christ, his humility, obedience, confidence, and forgiveness as shown in Phillippians 2:8 and Luke 23:34.

Pastor and I then had a nice chat afterwards about my experiences, his congregation, and his experiences in the Seminex controversy. Schrerer was in vicarage at the time. The chat concluded with his giving me a free pass to a gymnasium where he has a good relationship with the owner. I shall have to check it out.

I tried taking pictures of the sanctuary with my phone, but the pictures didn’t turn out. There is a modern altar with an interesting bronze Christ figure, and off to the side is a nearly 100-year-old German-style altar from the old church. I shall go again, taking the good camera with me.