Palm Sunday Procession at Bethany, Naperville

Okay, so I just included a link to Iggy's blog where this video, among many others, is posted, but this is too cool not to include here (I love the way the children reverence the altar as they process in and bow in unison, for the most part, during the refrain of "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" - pretty neat!):

Palm Sunday Procession, Bethany Lutheran Church, March 28, 2010 from Cheryl on Vimeo.

Oh, and of course . . .

you should tune in daily to Issues, Etc. for the excellent Holy Week programming they will be offering.  Here is a message sent out by Pr. Wilken last week:

Dear Issues, Etc. listener,

Greetings in the name of Jesus, Who bore our sins in his body on the tree.

We have some great programming for you during Holy Week.

"The Palm Sunday Hymn 'Ride on Ride on in Majesty'" with Pastor Wil Weedon
"The Penitential Psalms: Psalms 130 & 143" with Pastor Todd Peperkorn
"The Hymn 'What is this Bread?'" with Dr. Arthur Just
"Martin Luther on the Passion of Christ" with Pastor Paul McCain
"The Words of Christ from the Cross" with Pastor Bill Cwirla
"The Passion of Christ According to Luke" with Dr. Arthur Just

You can listen to these shows live or on-demand at www.issuesetc.org.

Have a blessed Holy Week and Easter!

Wir sind alle Bettler,

Todd Wilken, host
Issues, Etc.

Some Blogs to Follow . . .

for your Holy Week edification:

Cyberbrethren (Rev. Paul McCain has some great posts up already, and will continue to have them daily, I'm sure - I really like his Google Earth post of yesterday, which contains a link to an interactive map to track the events of Holy Week).

All for Hymn (Iggy Antiochus has posted, and will post, some awesome videos to watch as the week unfolds).

Gottesdienst Online (Fr. Curtis and company will be posting Holy Week poetry each day for our meditation). 

Weedon's Blog (A daily must read, not just during Holy Week, but all year round). 

Gottesblog (Fr. Eckardt posts his daily homilies to which you can listen)

I'm sure there are a plethora of other blogs I should mention, but these are just a few that I know will be featuring specific Holy Week meditations worth your while to visit this week. 

Holy Monday Matins

There were eight of us who gathered together for Matins this morning.  What a glorious way to begin Holy Monday!  Frankincense burning on the altar to accompany our prayer and meditation upon God's Holy Word, and Martin Chemnitz preaching the homily into our ears.  Yep, great way to begin Holy Monday!  Some features of this morning's Matins:

Antiphon:
P:  Christ became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
C:  O come, let us worship Him.

Office Hymn:  LSB 531 "Hail, Thou Once Despised Jesus" (st. 4)

Worship, honor, pow'r, and blessing

     Thou art worthy to receive;

Highest praises, without ceasing,

     Right it is for us to give.

Help, ye bright angelic spirits,

     All your noblest anthems raise;

Help to sing our Savior's merits,

     Help to chant Immanuel's praise!

Old Testament Reading:  Lamentations 1:1-22

From The Lutheran Study Bible:  Jeremiah describes the terrible conditions in Jerusalem after it fell to the Babylonians and its leading citizens were taken captive.  Contrasted with the wealth and beauty of its former days, the ruins lie as a testimony to God's just response against persistent sin and rebellion.  The foundation of sin and rebellion is unbelief, a refusal to trust God and follow Him.  Even in the face of His people's faithlessness, God proves Himself faithful to His promise of a Savior by preserving a remnant that will return to Jerusalem.  * Teach us to live wisely, O Lord, according to Your will and in the joy of our salvation in Jesus Christ.  Amen.

New Testament Reading:  Hebrews 2:1-18

From The Lutheran Study Bible (vv. 5-18):  Jesus, as true man, willingly humbled Himself to taste death.  As resurrected Lord, and as our firstborn brother (v. 11), He serves as our High Priest to intercede for us before the Father.  Without a Savior, we would live in slavery to the fear of death.  But Jesus has taken the consequence of our sin and removes our fear.  Knowing our weaknesses, He will always help us when we are tempted.  * Lord Jesus, You know my weakness.  Help me always to turn away from sin and to put all my trust in You.  Amen.

Responsory:
P:  We have an advocate with the Father; Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.
C:  He was delivered up to death; He was delivered for the sins of the people.
P:  Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is put away.
C:  He was delivered up to death; He was delivered for the sins of the people.
P:  We have an advocate with the Father; Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.
C:  He was delivered up to death; He was delivered for the sins of the people.

The Writing (in place of the homily) by Martin Chemnitz (From Treasury of Daily Prayer):

And it is the sweetest comfort that sin, which made its habitation in human flesh, was condemned in the same human flesh, in the person of Christ.  Our body is the body of death, but in that same body of ours which the Son of God assumed from us, death was again destroyed.  Although our sins have separated us very far from God (Is. 59:2), so that we have been alienated from the grace, righteousness, and life of God (Eph. 2:12), yet the Son of God has brought very close to us those heavenly blessings which had been removed far from us (Eph. 2:13-19), laying them before us through His incarnation in the flesh, which is of the same substance with our own, so that of His fullness we have received grace for grace (John 1:16).  This is the most comforting and salutary exchange, that the Son of God has received from us a human nature and sanctified and blessed and exalted and glorified it in His own person.

Moreover, in His Holy Supper He joins Himself to us in that flesh, so that we may be strengthened by this most certain pledge of the salvation and glorification of our nature; for He does not blush to call us brothers.  Therefore, because we are such, He also joins Himself to us in that flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14).  Flesh brought death into this world and, again, the flesh of the Son of Man was given for the life of the world in order that he who eats the flesh of Christ may have eternal life (John 6:54). 

Collect of the Day:
Almighty God, grant that in the midst of our failures and weaknesses we may be restored through the passion and intercession of Your only-begotten Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Rock On, Sparty!

Wow, what a game!  Not good for the blood pressure, that's for sure.  Sparty finds a way again, thanks, in large part, to Summers (pictured above), who has been red hot all tournament long.  Back to the Final Four, baby!  GO GREEN!  GO WHITE!
 

Scoreboard
Final	1	2	T
Tennessee #6	41	28	69
Michigan State #5	39	31	70

Palm/Passion Sunday

We entered Holy Week in a most blessed way this morning, processing into the Nave bearing palm branches and singing, "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" (LSB 442), reading responsively the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew, the Evangelist, hearing in the sermon about the Divine Irony which meets us at every turn during this holiest of weeks when God accomplishes His Divine Plan of our salvation, and receiving the Divine Gifts our Lord mercifully and graciously delivers to us as He rides into our midst humbly and hiddenly via His Holy Word and Sacraments.  Absolutely beautiful and overflowing with joy!

"Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, the foal of a donkey."

"Hosanna to the Son of David!  

Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!"

Let us pray:  

Most merciful God, as the people of Jerusalem, with palms in their hands, gathered to greet Your dearly beloved Son when He came into His Holy City, grant that we may ever hail Him as our King and, when He comes again, may go forth to meet Him with trusting and steadfast hearts and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Almighty and everlasting God, You sent Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross.  Mercifully grant that we may follow the example of His great humility and patience and be made partakers of His resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

In lowly pomp ride on to die.

O Christ, Thy triumphs now begin

O'er captive death and conquered sin. 

(LSB 441:2)

Some pics of our sanctuary, adorned for Palm/Passion Sunday, and of our Holy Week paraments and vestments (thanks to Meggers for taking these!):

 

A pic of our now complete set of chasubles:

The Elite Eight, Baby!

And then there was one - Big Ten team left in the Dance, that is.  The Buckeyes fell to Tennessee, and the Boilermakers were handled by Duke, but Sparty moved on tonight, even without the services of their starting point guard.  And now my Spartans have a chance to punch their ticket to the Final Four without having had to play any team seeded higher than #4 (they beat #4 Maryland last week, #9 Northern Iowa tonight, and will play #6 Tennessee on Sunday).  If they play like they did tonight, they have a good shot to knock off the Volunteers.  Then, they'd face the winner of Butler vs. Kansas State for a place in the National Championship.  They got a real shot here!  But, first things first - let's focus on silencing the "Rocky Top" fans.  Come on, chant it with me: 

GO GREEN!  

GO WHITE! 

Peace Movie Night

Tonight, we had Movie Night at our church and watched "The Passion of the Christ."  I was a little disappointed that we didn't have more people show up.  Maybe it's time to put this movie away for a few years (we've watched it on the Friday before Holy Week for five years in a row now).  Still, Gibson's depiction of the Passion of our Lord never ceases to put things into perspective, no matter how "over the top" it may be.  What our Lord endured for us is unknowingly astonishing, and Gibson's film brings that out.

"But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed" (Is. 53:5).  

A couple of pics of "The Passion" playing on our big screen:

Our Lutheran Confessions - A Good Friend?

I recently had an LCMS pastor tell me that he sees our Lutheran Confessions as a good friend.  He went on to explain that, for him, they are like the good friend you haven't talked with in a while, but get caught right back up with when you run into that friend.  I don't think the way this pastor views our Confessions is unique today.  In fact, I believe there are many pastors in our synod today who see our Confessions in the same light, as a good friend they run into from time to time and say, "Hi." 

If our Confessions are seen as a good friend by these pastors, who do they see as their "best buddies"?  Who do they "hang out with" on a regular basis?  Who is having an impact on them and influencing the way they think and act?  After all, those good friends we have in this life - the kind we don't talk to on a regular basis, but get caught up with from time to time - don't really have a significant impact on us.  They're the kind of friends who "overlook our broken gate and admire the flowers in our garden," as it says in the pic above.  They're the kind of friends who are there for us despite our faults.  They're the kind of friends we can turn to when we're down, because we know that they'll be there to pick us back up.

Is this the role our Confessions should play for Lutheran pastors - the role of a good friend?  Hardly.  I mean, we Lutheran pastors take vows promising to perform all our duties in accord with these Confessions.  We don't befriend them; we pledge obedience to them.  I don't know about you, but I have not pledged my obedience to any of the good friends I have in this life.  The good friends I have wouldn't demand that of me, anyway.  They're good friends, not authorities.  They may have completely different views on many things, but they remain good friends.

This idea of treating our Confessions as a good friend is akin to the mistake so many parents make today of treating their children like friends.  My children, and I have four of them, are not my friends.  I'm their father, not their buddy, Tom.  It is my responsibility to bring them up in the fear of the Lord, to teach them right from wrong, to make sure that they are well mannered as they interact with others, and to discipline them when they go astray.  It is their duty to honor me (and their mother) and to obey the rules I (we) set forth in our house.  Much more could be said about this, but you get the point. 

Our Confessions are not the writings of our good friends, but of our spiritual fathers.  We Lutheran pastors have promised to live in their "house" and to perform all our duties according to their "rules."  We don't get to do our own thing.  We are not permitted to pal around with others who have a different set of "rules."  We don't get to "live our life as we please."  But, that's exactly what happens when pastors see our Confessions as a good friend.  The Confessions are not an authority for them, but they are like a good friend who loves them no matter what.  They live in their own "house" and are free to play by their own "rules," believing that their good friend will always be there for them.  In reality, they are like rebellious teenagers who don't play by their father's rules, saying, "This is my life and I'll live it how I please."  Of course, they don't see it like that.  How can they?  When they don't see the Confessions as the writings of our spiritual fathers, whose authority they must obey, they will hardly be able to see themselves as rebellious.  I mean, can you really rebel against a good friend?  Think about it.

All of this begs the question, though:  How can pastors who see our Confessions as a good friend faithfully fulfill the vows they made to perform all their duties in accord with the Confessions?  Is that even possible?  I don't think so, and I think we see proof of this impossibility all around us today in our synod.       

Holy Week & Easter Schedule at Peace

As hard as it is for me to believe, in just a few short days, we will enter the most important week of the Church Year.  I wish I could say that I was fully prepared, but that would be a lie.  Besides, what fun would it be to be fully prepared anyway?  I do have most of the bulletins done, but still have some tweaking to do to a few of them.  Some of the sermons only need slight revisions; others need to be drafted in whole.  Needless to say, I will be a busy beaver over the next several days.  Even so, I can't wait.  I look forward to this holiest of weeks every year, and cherish the opportunity to gather around Word and Sacrament with my brothers and sisters in Christ daily.  Here is the schedule we will follow this year:

Palm/Passion Sunday
9:30 a.m. - Divine Service (w/Procession of Palms and St. Matthew's Passion Account)

Holy Monday
7 am - Matins (spoken)*
12 pm - Divine Service (spoken)
7 pm - Divine Service (spoken - same Service as Noon)

Holy Tuesday
7 am - Matins (spoken)
12 pm - Divine Service (spoken)
7 pm - Divine Service (spoken - same Service as Noon)

Holy Wednesday
7 am - Matins (spoken)
12 pm - Divine Service (spoken)
7 pm - Divine Service (spoken - same Service as Noon)

Holy (Maundy) Thursday
7 am - Matins (spoken)
12 pm - Divine Service (spoken)
7 pm - Divine Service (sung- w/Corporate C&A, Christian Questions & Answers, Stripping of the Altar & Psalm 22)

Good Friday
7 am - Matins (spoken)
12 pm - Chief Divine Service (sung - w/Seven Words of Christ, Litany, Procession of rough-hewn Cross)
3 pm - Short Devotion at the Sacred Hour
7:30 pm - Tenebrae (sung - w/Reproaches, St. John's Passion Account, Bidding Prayer, Strepitus)

Holy Saturday
7 am - Matins (spoken)
10 am - Divine Service (spoken)
8 pm - Easter Vigil (w/champagne reception following the Vigil)

Easter Sunday
7 am - Divine Service:  Sunrise Service
8:30 am - Easter Breakfast
9:30 am - Divine Service:  Festival of the Resurrection

Easter Monday
12 pm - Divine Service

Easter Tuesday
12 pm - Divine Service

Easter Wednesday
12 pm - Divine Service
7 pm - Vespers

* For daily Matins throughout Holy Week, we use the propers from Treasury of Daily Prayer, substituting the OT Reading with the "additional reading" from Lamentations.  Thus, we end up reading through the whole book of Lamentations during the week.  We did this for the first time last year, and it served as a powerful way to begin each day during Holy Week.  Also, in place of the homily, I simply read the Writing for each day.

I am especially excited for this Holy Week, since we now have beautiful new scarlet vestments to match our scarlet paraments, thanks to DK Brunner & Son.

I am thankful to Pr. Petersen (Redeemer, Ft. Wayne), who turned me on to the idea of holding Daily (spoken) Mass (Divine Service) throughout Holy Week a few years back.  There is just something very special about speaking the liturgy during these Services - the contrast cannot help but strike you and serves as a helpful aide for meditation during this holiest of weeks.  Plus, when Holy Thursday evening rolls around and we sing the liturgy again, it is spine-tingling awesome, having spoken it in the previous days.  Cool stuff, indeed!

I really like the way . . .

this guy thinks!  Actually, I'll see his $4 million and bump him $4 million.  Let's set aside 10% of our annual synodical budget to fund our seminaries.  I know, I know, that's not feasible.  Things are just more complicated than any of us can imagine.  I've heard it all before.  The synod just doesn't receive enough money to keep itself running and support our seminaries at the same time.  There's an easy solution to that - just eliminate as much of the unneeded bureaucracy as it takes to put ourselves in the position to give 10% to our seminaries.  Hey, while we're at it, let's just go ahead and eliminate as much as we have to in order to allot 10% to funding missionaries as well.  Imagine that:  20% of what the synod takes in to train pastors for service here and abroad, and to fund missionaries in the endeavor to bring the Gospel to more regions around the globe.  I mean, 100% of the reason why our synod was established was to do these things, so it doesn't seem like to much to ask to dedicate 20% of our resources to them.  But, alas, it can't be done.  I'm just a silly parish pastor who doesn't understand the ins and outs of synodical economics.  Funny, that's the same line fed to us by our federal government all the time.  You silly citizens with all your crazy ideas on how to fix things - you just don't get it.  Oh well, maybe I don't get it.  Come to think of it, I never have gotten how our synod got to the point of giving less than 1% of its annual budget to our seminaries and missionaries.  And, to be honest, I doubt that I ever will get that. 

The perfect pre-Easter present . . .

for the busy pastor as the busiest time of the year quickly approaches:

Thanks, Trixie! 
I don't know if it's better than Jack, but it's darn tasty! :)

Issues, Etc. Blog of the Week

Just received an email from a friend congratulating me on being chosen for IE Blog of the Week this past Friday.  I often listen to the show live on Fridays, but wasn't able to this past week, so I had no clue.  Anyway, thanks to Pr. Wilken for choosing my blog.  You can listen to the segment here.

Oh So Sweet!

I couldn't believe Sparty let the Terps back into the game, but the finish was worth the anxiety which preceded it.  What an awesome buzzer-beater by Lucious!  Movin' on to the Sweet 16 baby!  The only bummer is that we'll be without our starting point guard, Lucas, at least for Friday's game against Northern Iowa.  Yeah, we get to play Northern Iowa, who demolished nearly everyone's brackets with their upset victory over Kansas, the top-seeded team in the dance.  I like our chances!  It's looking very good for an all Big Ten Regional Final, with the Spartans and Buckeyes (who play Tennessee on Friday) battling for a spot in the Final Four.  Of course, anything can happen.

By the way, for all my family and friends who root for that other Big 10 team from our state, how's the NIT going for ya?  Oh wait, that's right, you didn't even get invited to play in that tournament.  Oops, sorry about that. :)

"Fuller churches make for fuller churches"

I shared the following in another forum when an LCMS pastor, who is an advocate for doing contemporary worship, was arguing that one of the principles which should guide pastors is the desire to make our churches "fuller."  It should go without saying that every pastor would love to see the pews packed on Sunday mornings.  It would be wonderful to have "standing room only."  What pastor in his right mind actually enjoys looking out on empty pews?  But, when having "fuller" churches becomes a guiding principle for pastors, what is almost always sacrificed is the true guiding principle which should be driving pastors, namely to have "faithful" churches.  Anyway, here is the (slightly edited) response I wrote to this pastor:
 
In reference to the idea of "fuller" churches, my pastor from many years ago, who, after 20 years in the Ministry, went and got a degree in "church growth" from Fuller Theological Seminary and subsequently changed everything about our congregation, used to tell me, in the midst of our many debates on the changes he was making, "Fuller churches make for fuller churches!"  At least he was honest.  He readily admitted that he was employing principles and practices that were at odds with our Lutheran theology.  He still considered himself a Lutheran because he still believed that Lutherans had the "fundamental doctrines" right, but mainly because he believed that Lutherans were right about the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament.  He was fond of arguing that he thought it prudent to retain the best of Lutheran theology, but to also supplement it with the theology of others.  In his estimation, Lutheranism wasn't enough.  And, as for his approach to our Lutheran Confessions, he would just flat out tell you that they were wrong in some places, particularly in what they confessed about worship.  He believed that our Lutheran forefathers had not done enough to break free from Rome and that the way they spoke about worship in the Confessions proved as much.  In fact, years later, after much study under my belt, I brought up the whole quia vs. quatenus issue with him (for those of you who may not understand what is meant by these terms, they're descriptors for how one subscribes to our Lutheran Confessions; a quia subscription means that one subscribes unconditionally to our Confessions because they are a correct exposition of the doctrines revealed in Holy Scripture, while a quatenus subscription means that one subscribes conditionally to our Confessions in so far as they are in agreement with the doctrines revealed in Holy Scripture - all pastors in the LCMS are required to hold a quia subscription), to which he responded with a derogatory comment about me living in an "ivory tower" environment and so forth.  When pressing him further, he said he couldn't care less about the "q-words," stating emphatically, "The Lutheran Confessions are NOT the Word of God!" 

"Fuller churches make for fuller churches!"  This pastor was on the front lines of the battle we still fight today when that battle was still in its incipient stages.  He was doing contemporary worship before it was en vogue.  He, and his friends, some of whom hold prominent leadership positions in our synod today, knew full well that they were abandoning confessional Lutheranism.  They would just come out and tell you so.  Lutheranism wasn't enough.  Our Confessions were just plain wrong about worship.  They were honest about it back then in a way that we don't witness today.  I've written about this before, here and elsewhere - about how these guys knew they were abandoning Lutheranism to the point of making sure that their "Fuller" ways were kept hush-hush, since our synod wasn't ready yet.  But, now their friends are in the highest positions within our synod and they're out in the open.  Only now they've stopped being honest.  Now they try to sell the idea that what they're doing is perfectly Lutheran.  And they've convinced a lot of unknowing, unsuspecting people, so they feel empowered to march on with their new brand of Lutheranism, which is no Lutheranism at all. 

The battle will continue, to be sure.  And the disciples of these guys who started the contemporary worship movement (based on principles of the "church growth movement" taught at places like Fuller) in our synod, or at least provided it the momentum it needed to become the given it is today, can argue till they're blue in the face that what they're doing is perfectly Lutheran, but they're following masters who definitely knew better.  I liked it much better back in the day when they were just plain honest about things, admitting that their principles and practices did not originate from our Confessions, but from the theology taught at places like Fuller; when they would just say that they were following the mantra, "Fuller churches make for fuller churches!"

Further thoughts:  A couple of years ago, I spent some time reviewing the past minutes from Church Council meetings and Voters' Assemblies which took place during the 1980s in the congregation I serve.  I was simply amazed as I read the pastors' reports during this time.  A great many of those reports contained information about various "church growth" seminars the pastors had attended.  And, the influence those seminars had on these pastors just comes screaming through, as they are constantly reporting about the changes the congregation must make to grow numerically.  Flirtation with the "church growth movement" was all the rage in our synod during the 80s.  I wonder if our inability to prevent that flirtation from leading to widespread acceptance in our synod had to do with being exhausted over the "Battle for the Bible" (Seminex) which was fought in the previous decade.  Perhaps our concern over making sure that our pastors (and congregations) confessed the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, worthy as that concern was, resulted in us taking our eye off the ball when pastors (and congregations) began flirting with, and adopting, the principles of the "church growth movement."  After all, Fuller and company hold a traditional, conservative ("fundamental") view of the Bible, believing it to be the Word of God, so maybe, just maybe, many in our synod didn't flinch, as they should have, when pastors started doing the whole "Fuller" thing, since, well, at lest they still believed in the Bible.  I don't know.  It's a theory worth exploring, I think.

At any rate, whether today's "contemporary worship" advocates in our synod want to admit it or not, they are following in the footsteps of those whose mantra was, and really still is, "Fuller churches make for fuller churches!"