Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life. Worship: March 22, 2026

Bulletin Cover Image Credit: By Henry Ossawa Tanner - Musée d’Orsay https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/la-resurrection-de-lazare-9241

Lent is a time when God prepares His people to celebrate the Paschal Feast, the resurrection of Jesus, with sincerity and truth. In the Reading from Ezekiel 37, we see the power of the Word that transforms dry bones into living flesh with the breath of the Spirit. This same Spirit lives in us and will raise us at the Last Day, which is exactly what we hear from Paul in the Reading from Romans 8. The Spirit who raised Christ will also give life to us. Having received the Spirit in Baptism, we join with Martha in confessing boldly that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who comes to us today in His Word and Sacrament and will come again to call us out of our graves.

Jesus Turns Our Darkness into Light. Worship: March 15, 2026

 The Lord is grieved by the spiritual blindness of His people, but He does not forsake them. Instead, He promises to turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground (Isaiah 42:16). The Lord does not give up on His servant, Israel, but sends another Servant who is the light of the world (John 9:5). Jesus’ light comes to us in His Word, His water, and His Supper. These are His means for opening our eyes to see and to live as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). Baptized into Christ, we look forward to the day when these words will come pass: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14).

We Worship What We Know. Worship: March 8, 2026

It often seems that life is a debate about the things we do not know. What is truth? What is right and wrong? Where is God? None of these questions are theoretical and all of them are answered in Christ, whom we know as Savior and Redeemer. The Law reveals the depth of our need and our sinful hearts. Christ makes known the love of the Father. Gathered in worship, we meet where Christ is—in His Word and Sacraments. Faith is not about what we do not know but about what we do know. Christ is our all. He fulfills the promise of the Old Testament and completes our redemption. We confess Him who came, who comes to us now through the means of grace, and who will come again to deliver us to the Father. To know Christ is to know everything.It often seems that life is a debate about the things we do not know. What is truth? What is right and wrong? Where is God? None of these questions are theoretical and all of them are answered in Christ, whom we know as Savior and Redeemer. The Law reveals the depth of our need and our sinful hearts. Christ makes known the love of the Father. Gathered in worship, we meet where Christ is—in His Word and Sacraments. Faith is not about what we do not know but about what we do know. Christ is our all. He fulfills the promise of the Old Testament and completes our redemption. We confess Him who came, who comes to us now through the means of grace, and who will come again to deliver us to the Father. To know Christ is to know everything.

Led by the Spirit, Jesus Is Tempted. Worship: February 22, 2026

Only weeks ago, Jesus was called out by John as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Now Jesus reveals what He must do for us and our salvation. He must stand where Adam stood, tempted by the devil. This time, however, Jesus refuses to surrender His righteousness in the face of evil but preserves it so that He might give it to you and to me. With confidence in Christ’s righteousness, which we wear by Baptism, and His forgiveness, which restores us when we fall, we know that the devil can harm us no more. We belong to Christ. In the power of Christ, we are made strong before the tempter’s power, and in Him we are brought through death to life everlasting.

Remember That You Are Dust. Worship: February 18, 2026

As we begin another Lenten journey to the cross and to the empty tomb, we will pass the familiar route of Wednesday services, special devotions, and sacrificial acts. It all begins here with ashes, an old and biblical sign of repentance. From the Old Testament to the present, ashes have been an outward sign of inward contrition. While not sacramental, they are not mere ritual either; they bear witness to the internal sorrow over sin with which we come while asking for and expecting forgiveness from God. The mood of this service is somber as we reflect upon the shape of our lives of faith and recall the discipline or piety that accompanies that faith. We are dust and to dust we shall return but even in dust there is hope. The ashes are marked in the sign of that hope: a cross where Christ bore the weight of our sin so that we might be forgiven and restored to Himself.

Brilliant! Worship: February 15, 2026

Image Credit: The Transfiguration of Christ, below him various figures including the Apostles. Master of the Die Italian

After Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio or Santi) Italian 1530–60

Jesus looks brilliant! As language changes, sometimes the most basic meanings of words change and expand with the times. For generations, the English word brilliant meant simply something that shines or radiates light. The word is thought to be derived from the prized gemstone beryl, which is mentioned in both the Old Testament book of Daniel (10:6) and the book of Revelation (21:20). Jesus’ garments became “white as light,” Matthew writes (17:2), in a way that mirrors Psalm 104, where the psalmist writes of God: “You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a garment” (vv. 1–2). As He stands on the mountaintop with Moses and Elijah, Jesus is shining, radiant, and brilliant. An expanded meaning of the word brilliant is “perfect, amazing, and wonderful.” Jesus on the mountaintop is brilliant as He discusses how He will carry out God’s plan of our salvation with two of the best coaches ever, Moses and Elijah. Jesus does not just look brilliant—He is brilliant!

The Noblest Work. Worship: February 8, 2026

Although the work of composers of church music and writers of hymn texts are often observed and even celebrated, the faithful and thoughtful work of text translators is rarely noted. One of the most gifted translators, whose work brought into English many historical and doctrinally powerful German hymns, was an Englishwoman named Catherine Winkworth. The contributors’ index in Lutheran Service Book (p. 1002) lists forty-six hymns included in the hymnal that she translated from the original German. Her chosen words have both beauty and depth of meaning. In the second stanza of Johann Mentzer’s hymn “Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices” (LSB 811), she phrases the call to all powers to praise God with these simple words: “Your noblest work is to adore.” As we gather for worship and bring our praises in adoration to our gracious God, we are fulfilling our purpose as the crown of His creation. We are called in our worship to be joyfully carrying out the “noblest work.” It doesn’t get any better than that!

Blessed Indeed. Worship: February 1, 2026

Many of the words that we use on a regular basis in our worship have a rich and meaningful history that is often not well known. The word blessed or blessing used in the liturgy and hymns of the church is derived from the Old English word bloedsian, “to make something sacred.” This word, traced further back to an ancient Germanic dialect, originally meant “to make sacred in marking with blood.” That meaningful linkage is well reflected in the eighteenth-century hymn text by English clergyman Joseph Humphreys, which begins: “Blest the children of our God, They are bought with Christ’s own blood; They are ransomed from the grave, Life eternal they will have” (LW 370:1). In his poetic text, Humphreys echoes 1 John, where we read: “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1:7). We are blessed though the blood of Jesus to be the children of God! As we pray with hymn writer Humphreys: “With them numbered may we be here and in eternity!” (LW 370:1).

Ordinary Discipleship. Worship: January 25, 2026

The Epiphany season proclaims and celebrates the salvation of God coming into the world as a light shining in a dark place. Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah predicting the dawning of that light into the darkness of unbelief, separation from God, sin, and “the shadow of death” (Matthew 4:16). That light was and is Jesus and His message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (v. 17). It may seem like a minor detail that Matthew says Isaiah’s prophetic words were fulfilled when Jesus left His hometown of Nazareth to live “in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali” (v. 13). Yet even this little fact testifies to how real the words of the Old Testament are and how they are fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ.

Likewise, it may at times seem insignificant and even unimportant when the light of the Gospel is preached in our hearing and in our world today. How many of us have heard God’s voice directly saying, “Follow me”? Those who were baptized as infants have no memory of ever being apart from God or His church. The life of faith in God may just seem normal or even routine to us—nothing out of the ordinary. Still, our sins remind us of the temptation to ignore God. Like the Christians in Corinth, we have sinful pride that causes divisions and quarreling among us. And while that’s no different than anywhere else in our world, to be a disciple of Jesus means to be truly different than the world. Repentance means being transformed by love of God and love of neighbor. Today, Jesus truly is saying to you, “Repent” and “Follow Me,” even in the ordinary details of life.

Called Saints. Worship: January 18, 2026

He Qi (Chinese, 1950–), Calling the Disciples, 1999. Oil on canvas.

People often speak about a person’s calling in life. They are describing a unique purpose or vocation according to interests and talents. Often, trying to determine a person’s “calling” or “destiny” is defined by some innate ability or giftedness found within ourselves, something we were born with or somehow born to do.

Today we hear of God calling otherwise ordinary fishermen Andrew and his brother Simon Peter. They were called by God through John the Baptist to follow the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. They were called to be disciples and eventually to be sent on Christ’s mission as apostles. The prophet Isaiah says even the Savior, the servant of the Lord, was called from the womb by God, “that Israel might be gathered to Him,” and called “as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:5–6). Saul of Tarsus was “called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus,” and Saul, now named Paul, reminds the church at Corinth and us that we are “called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:1–2). This calling differs from merely surveying interests or abilities within us; it comes to us from outside of ourselves, from the living God, our creator and Redeemer. This calling comes from God to everyone. It is the call of salvation, the divine call that transforms us from sinners into saints. Therefore, this calling depends not on anything within us but solely and totally on the grace and mercy and love of God.