An eNote from Rodney

Friday March 11, 2016

First Thing! Make sure to turn your clocks forward one hour before you go to bed on Saturday night.  Daylight Savings Time is upon us.  

On Sunday morning we are going to sing a new hymn.  The title is “Come, Ye Disconsolate” and it’s #510 in our hymnal.  We will sing it once with the choir before the service starts and it will be our closing hymn. The hymn has lovely Lent- appropriate lyrics;

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,

Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!

Here speaks the comforter, tenderly saying,

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.

The choir will sing for us on Sunday, the Trinity Strings will do a number and Cathi Durham and Bryce Parham will perform a duet.

Andrew is planning our Easter Sunday morning and the Easter Egg Hunt.  The Education Committee is asking you to bring individually wrapped candies to put into the eggs. There will be a collection box in the hallway behind the sanctuary for the candy and thank you for your assistance. Easter Sunday morning is a wonderful time to invite a friend to worship with you.  I love the Sunrise service at Tom and Mary Jo Harrison’s home, the children’s egg hunt and fellowship time before the service.  I especially enjoy the Easter Sunday mornings when it’s nice outside and I get to call folks from the front yard into the sanctuary.  

Last Sunday in worship we used The Nicene Creed.  This creed was established at the First Council of Nicaea in 325.  The main argument at Nicaea concerning church belief was that a truly divine God could not be fully human.  The Nicene Creed affirms that Jesus is co-substantial with the Father (equally sharing essence with the Father) and is also fully human.  The Jesus who walks toward Jerusalem is “of one Being with the Father” and is also “truly human”. Whew! That does it for me. That is warmth on a cold winter’s night.   Notice also that the version of the creed we use has the verbs in the original plural form of “we believe”, not “I believe.”  We will use the Nicene Creed again this Sunday.

Don’t forget to turn your clocks forward one hour on Saturday night and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday morning.

Sincerely,

Rodney

“God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt”

-American Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson