Luther Begins Teaching: 1508-1509
The ROAD TO REFORMATION In preparation for the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, we are presenting a brief survey of the life of Martin Luther. The series will culminate in the October 2017 issue…
Luther Begins Teaching: 1508-1509
Ministry to India’s Lepers
NOTES FROM THE FIELD In this series, thoseinvolved with CLC foreign missions profile one aspect of our overseas endeavors. Several years ago on a Mission Helper trip to India, I was riding with Pastor Moses,…
St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church Bismarck, North Dakota
A SLICE OF LIFE IN THE CLC SNAPSHOTS OF CONGREGATIONS FROM AROUND THE CHURCH OF THE LUTHERAN CONFESSION Snow on the prairie often comes early—and sideways. Once it finally reaches the ground it keeps tumbling…
“How do Lutherans differ from other churches on the Lord’s Supper?”
“I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!” (TWENTY-SEVENTH IN A SERIES) Pastors Answer Frequently-Asked Questions Generally speaking, all Christian churches fall into one of three categories: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed/Protestant. Though they share some teachings in common…
Stefan Sonnenfeld
IN THE PIPELINE (EIGHTH IN A SERIES) This series profiles the men and women who are preparing for the public teaching and preaching ministry at our Immanuel Lutheran College and Seminary in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. …
Mini Classes!
ILC Newsletter Every other month we get an update on what’s been happening at our Immanuel Lutheran High School, College and Seminary in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Immanuel Lutheran High School and College students got a…
“BREAD OF LIFE” READINGS April 2017
TLH = The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941; WS = Worship Supplement 2000; LSB = Lutheran Service Book, 2006
Date Verse Reading Comments
Apr 1 TLH 148:9-11 John 17:24-26 After all your sin and all your rebellion, Jesus still wants you to be with Him. That’s amazing. That’s divine grace.
Apr 3 TLH 142:1-2 Isaiah 53:1-5 What did Jesus look like? He looked very ordinary, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was, after all, our Substitute.
Apr 4TLH 142:3-4Isaiah 53:6-9The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Apr 5 TLH 142:5-6 Isaiah 53:10-12 You just can’t bury the good news! Can you find the hints of Easter in these verses?
Apr 6 TLH 162 Matthew 21:1-17 Jesus comes in the name of the Lord, the One chosen by heaven to bear our sins.
A Day of Deliverance and Hope!
“Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.”
Genesis 8:4
What a joyful day of deliverance and hope. It had to have been a terrifying five months being tossed about in the torrential flood. For five months the angry hand of God was destroying every corruption of mankind together with every living thing that lived on dry land. Now at last the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. The fierce judgment of God was past, and the ark was now back on solid ground. It would be another seven months before Noah and the others could leave the ark and make a new life in the new world, but landing on solid ground gave them the promise and hope of the new life that lay ahead.
What does this have to do with Easter? Ask yourself why God identifies the specific day the ark landed. Is there anything special about the “seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month”? The Children of Israel left Egypt in the seventh month. Moses told Israel, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” (Exodus 12:2) Every year after that they were to sacrifice the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of that month. Jesus and His disciples, together with all Israel, sacrificed and ate the Passover lamb according to the command on the fourteenth day, the Thursday of Holy Week. Count it out! Friday was the fifteenth, Saturday the sixteenth, and Easter Sunday—the day Christ rose from the dead—was the seventeenth day of the month. Yes, Jesus rose from the dead on the very same day that the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.
Our New Life in the Risen Christ
DEVOTION – NEW LIFE
The year is 1753, in America. As long as you can remember, you have had to obey every whim of your master. He determines everything you do. He tells you when to get up and when to go to bed. He determines what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat. He even picks your spouse for you and sells your children at the slave market. You have no rights and no hope of freedom. There is no underground railroad to freedom, no Abraham Lincoln defending your cause, and no hope of an Emancipation Proclamation.
You are a slave.
But then someone comes along, someone you’ve never met, someone you’ve never done anything for, and says he will help you. He will pay the ransom price to free you from this horrid, hellish slave owner. Having been freed, what then? Would you choose to go back to that slave owner and serve him again? Wouldn’t you instead want to use your newly given freedom to live for the one who set you free?
“This Joyful Eastertide” WS 733, LSB 482
A HYMN OF GLORY LET US SING (SEVENTEENTH IN A SERIES)
Death seems final to us. Leaving the room where a loved one has just drawn that last breath, we don’t expect to turn around and meet him for lunch the next day. Our general experience is that the dead stay dead.
Yet it has happened in history, more than once, that the dead have come back to life. Lazarus (John 11:43-44) and the multitudes who came forth from Jerusalem’s tombs (Matthew 27:51-53) to name some. It is foolish to contend, as some have done and others still do, that there is no possibility of resurrection from the dead.
Our great God and Savior Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, was dead but now is living. It is His real, physical resurrection that we celebrate each spring in the processional hymn by George Woodward (1848-1934): This joyful Eastertide Away with sin and sorrow! / My love, the Crucified, Has sprung to life this morrow. So death’s finality has been proved false yet again (Matthew 28:5-6).