Everyday Lutherans

As many of you entered here today, you may have noticed that things are a little different here. We have changed the direction in which we are seated. For throughout this season of Lent, we have been focused on how it is that God calls us to change and be different for those who are in need in the world around us. So we changed so much of our church function and yet, what has truly changed? The layout has not truly changed but hopefully your perspective has. Now we come to the fulfillment of that change, that new life that God has been leading us through for the past forty days. As we have journeyed, we have looked at what it means to be a disciple. How it is we can wrestle and know that God is with us every single day. I hope that you were challenged and renewed in your faith journey throughout these forty days. But today, we gather to celebrate and to feast. To know the gift that is truly given to us in Jesus Christ. So we sing, we eat, we decorate, and we are united as broth...

It is difficult for us to capture the same surprise, joy, and amazement that those women and men who were the disciples of Jesus Christ had.  We have gathered for this three-part worship service of Jesus’ final day on earth and his death. We gather together today for his joyous arrival back among us.  However, for many of us, we know the story. We know what it is going to happen, while the disciples did not. It is like reading a book and then watching the movie. However, it is Easter on which most people focus.  They focus on the joyous celebration, the triumph and victory.  We so often focus upon it that we can forget the details or reason for the celebration.  We can forget the days that led up to this. The days that we still experience in our daily life.  However, along with this journey of life and faith, we can so easily get caught up on the one instance.  An instance that holds our gaze. It holds all our attention, our time, and our energy, that our life becomes focused on it.  W...

Some of you may be wondering why I have this shovel today.  I want you to think of the hard work that it really does take to use a shovel.  We are hopefully finishing up with the season of winter and will not have to use those snow shovels anymore.  However, we will be able to use a shovel like this.  With this shovel, we use it to move dirt.  We have simply turn over a small area so that we can plant something special.  We may use it to dig up around a plant so that we can move it.  Or we may use a shovel like this to dig a grave.   Do you know why we bury the dead? Why we place a person into the ground when they die?  Now some of you may say the words that are often spoken in the church, “It’s the way, we have always done things.” Or “It’s tradition”.  We do it because it reminds us, that God created us out of the dirt and out of the ashes of this world and breathed life into us.  We return the person back into the world, into tha...

Some of you may be wondering why I have this shovel today.  I want you to think of the hard work that it really does take to use a shovel.  We are hopefully finishing up with the season of winter and will not have to use those snow shovels anymore.  However, we will be able to use a shovel like this.  With this shovel, we use it to move dirt.  We have simply turn over a small area so that we can plant something special.  We may use it to dig up around a plant so that we can move it.  Or we may use a shovel like this to dig a grave.   Do you know why we bury the dead? Why we place a person into the ground when they die?  Now some of you may say the words that are often spoken in the church, “It’s the way, we have always done things.” Or “It’s tradition”.  We do it because it reminds us, that God created us out of the dirt and out of the ashes of this world and breathed life into us.  We return the person back into the world, into tha...

It is difficult for us to capture the same surprise, joy, and amazement that those women and men who were the disciples of Jesus Christ had.  We have gathered for this three-part worship service of Jesus’ final day on earth and his death. We gather together today for his joyous arrival back among us.  However, for many of us, we know the story. We know what it is going to happen, while the disciples did not.  It is like reading a book and then watching the movie. However, it is Easter on which most people focus.  They focus on the joyous celebration, the triumph, and victory.  We so often focus upon it that we can forget the details or reason for the celebration.  We can forget the days that led up to this. The days that we still experience in our daily life.  However, along with this journey of life and faith, we can so easily get caught up on the one instance.  An instance that holds our gaze. It holds all our attention, our time, and our energy, that our life becomes focused on it. ...

Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, where they laid their friend and loved one, Jesus.  She was going there to care for him, ensure that he would cleaned, and prepared to be laid to rest.  When she arrives, she expects to find a stone against the tomb, Jesus lying still wrapped in bands of cloth from the last time her and the disciples were gathered at his death. But instead, she finds something else. Entering here today, what did you expect to find? Did you expect a person who had recently died and you came and pay your respects?  While the disciples and many others would expect to find death, sorrow and sadness, today, we celebrate because now things have changed.  Something different has happened.  There is still death, but there is a gift of life! Death is something that has been part of human existence since Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden. They were the first to sin against God and ever since, sin and death have been part of the human existen...