We are about ½ way through the season of Lent, we’ve “sprung ahead” on our clocks, and it’s beginning to look and feel like Spring! Ahhh…Spring, the “lengthening of the days” (which is where the term “Lent” comes from.) As the new lush greenery sprouts up, and the Bougainvilleas and Azaleas and other flowering plants bloom, may these be reminders of the New Life that God offers us in this season of Lent and upcoming season of Easter.
And what is this “New Life”? Yesterday we began a 3 week “First Communion” course for our youngsters not yet communing. What we talked about during this first session was mostly Baptism, and how Baptism is like:
1) Taking a bath: we come out clean, washed from our sins, fresh start. (New Life!)
2) Planting a seed: how this new seed sprouts up and grows into a fruit bearing plant, the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. (New Life!)
3) Drowning: as the Old Adam or Old Eve, our fallen nature, is daily drowned and God’s new person is raised up. (New Life!)
4) Being born: in our second birth, when we are “born from above” or “born anew”, we have “New Life” and a new destiny, not as a child of the darkness but as a child of the Light and of the Day.
During these last weeks of Lent, and as we approach Easter, may we take advantage of the special worship opportunities and other activities around Our Savior, and in our own personal reading or devotions, to nurture the “New Life” that God would breathe into each of us in this season, this “New Life” which we are reminded of in creation all around us at this time of the year.
Our Wednesday Lenten services continue: 11am worship followed by soup and salad lunch, 7pm “Holden Evening Prayer” preceded by soup and salad supper at 6pm. Following worship men and women are invited to choir practice to prepare for Holy Week and Easter services. (If you’d like to volunteer to help serve those meals…the food is all prepared and ready…you don’t have to cook…call the church office, or come early and check with whoever is in the kitchen).
The Lutheran Men in Mission will also meet following worship, about 7:45 Wednesday evening, to plan this year’s Easter Breakfast.
On Thursday the WELCA ladies will have a “Brown Bag Lunch” meeting at 11:30.
If anyone would like to give this year’s Paschal Candle in honor or in memory of someone (the candle that is lit at the beginning of the Easter service, with the announcement “Christ is Risen!”, and which is lit throughout the Easter season and for all Baptisms and Funerals) the cost is $110.
For other information about life at Our Savior, please visit our website at: www.oursaviorelca.com.
Have a blessed week! Pastor Jack Diehl +
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