Upcoming Events in March and Beyond:
March 3rd Communion Sunday: The Last Supper of Christ as we move toward Holy Week at the end of the month. Human Condition sermon series: Unworthy. Confirmation class to follow worship service.
March 6th Wednesday: Lenten bible study: The book of Psalms section 3 of 5. 6 pm study.
March 10th Sunday: New Members Recognition (if you would like to join the church, please let me know). Whitechapel bells play during the service. Human Condition sermon series: Unloved/unappreciated. Lenten Bible Study: The book of Psalms section 4 of 5 after church.
March 17th Sunday: Wearing Green for St. Pat’s Day. During worship, Baptism & Corn Beef Breakfast following the service. Choir practice at 8 am. Genesis bells play during service. Human Condition: Depression (living the past).
March 20th Wednesday: Lenten bible study: The book of Psalms section 5 of 5. 6 pm study.
March 24th Palm Sunday: Choir practice at 8 am, performances during church. We’ll have palms on hand (pun intended) for waving during worship and to take home.
Contemporary team at Alden at 2 pm. Community outreach for Sunday School & Confirmation kids (scouts joining us) handing out cards to Alden residents.
March 29th Good Friday: 7 pm service. We’ll be asking for Jesus’ 7 statements from the cross readers and those who would like to carry or walk with the cross into the sanctuary at the beginning of the service.
March 31st Sunday Easter: We’ll adorn a special cross with flowers during worship. Easter egg hunt following the service.
Pastor Michael on vacation April 1st –14th
Blessings, Pastor Michael
- World Day of Prayer, March 1, 2024
- Daylight saving time begins, March 10, 2024
- First day of spring, March 19, 2024
- Holy Week, March 24-31, 2024
- Palm/Passion Sunday, March 24, 2024
- Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024
- Good Friday, March 29, 2024
- Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024
Resurrection Rumblings
In Easter Earthquake, James A. Harnish explores the “earthshaking promise” of Jesus’ resurrection. Easter Sunday “shatters the power of fear,” he writes. “Because Christ is risen, we no longer allow fear to dominate, control or manipulate us. We don’t remain imprisoned in the tombs of our past failures or buried under the weight of present anxiety. In the risen Christ, old things pass away and everything becomes new.”
Easter, Harnish adds, is proof that God hasn’t forsaken us and is present among us. “The Resurrection contradicts the assumption that Christ resides on an ethereal cloud in a distant heaven. Rather, we find him on the dusty road that leads to the real stuff of our ordinary world.”
Jesus’ followers can find him everywhere, Harnish concludes. “The risen Christ will meet us along the confused, chaotic, fearful paths of our lives and speak the same words the women hear at the tomb, ‘Do not be afraid.’”
Be the Donkey
Corrie ten Boom, a devout Christian who helped shelter hundreds of Jewish people from Nazis during World War II, was asked how she stayed humble despite her fame.
“When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey, and everyone was waving palm branches and throwing garments onto the road and singing praises, do you think that for one moment it ever entered the head of that donkey that any of that was for him?” she replied. “If I can be the donkey on which Jesus Christ rides in his glory, I give him all the praise and all the honor.”
Jesus told his followers they’d need to carry (or “take up”) their cross. But how well do you carry your Savior? How do you bring him into a world that desperately needs the good news of the gospel?
God’s Provision While We Wait
A November 2023 landslide trapped 41 construction workers in a tunnel they’d been excavating for a Himalayan highway project. For 17 days, they were stranded nearly 3 miles from freedom. When rescuers’ drilling equipment broke, miners drilled through the last 2 meters of rock and gravel by hand. Finally, all the workers were pulled to safety through a 3-foot-wide steel pipe. Because they had received food, water, medicines, oxygen and even light through a narrow pipe while underground, all were in good health.
We are trapped in sin and brokenness: our sin and that of others, fragmented relationships and systems, nearby and across the globe. Christianity teaches that God’s way of goodness will win in the end. But before full rescue comes, what keeps us alive and hopeful — even healthy?
As water was faithfully provided to the laborers through that narrow pipe, God quenches our thirst through baptism. Scripture and the sacrament of communion are the food and medicine that nourish and strengthen us. Prayer — our own and others’ prayers for us — along with the Holy Spirit’s gifts such as comfort and joy flow into our lives like the light of hope and the oxygen of life. Though complete rescue seems slow to come, God provides for us while we wait. —Heidi Hyland Mann
Our Feeble Prayers, Our Father’s Response
In He Still Moves Stones, Max Lucado recalls the story of Derek Redmond, a 1992 Olympic competitor in the 400-meter race. Halfway through Redmond’s semifinal run, a torn hamstring sent him tumbling to the ground. His dad, Jim, immediately ran onto the track. He met up with Derek, who, though crying, had managed to stand and was hopping forward.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jim said. But Derek insisted. “Well, then, we’re going to finish this together,” said Jim, who supported his son as he hobbled to the finish line. The crowd cheered and wept as Derek, with Dad’s assistance, finished the race.
Lucado writes: “What made the father do it? … Was it the strength of his child? No, it was the pain of his child. … God does the same. Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.”
