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2022-12-19 Vespers - Commemoration of Adam and Eve

 2022-12-19 Vespers - Commemoration of Adam and Eve - Isaiah 40:1-17 & Revelation 7:1-17 As we commemorate the first man and woman today, we recognize that Adam and Eve were endowed with great gifts from God. Adam is created in the image of God. And from Adam came Eve. Adam is given dominion over all the earth. A tremendous responsibility of stewardship is entrusted to him.  When they succumbed to the temptation to be like God, and fell into sin, their sin impacts us all to this day.  When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s command, they inaugurated a cycle of life and death that we have no choice but to participate in.   Creation is constantly changing. There is nothing steady.  The seasons come and go.  The sleep and inactivity of winter leads into the new birth of spring which is followed by a summer of growth which is then followed by a time of harvest and a slow dying as all of creation returns to its winter death waiting for the new life to ...
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John Donne on Christmas

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As we are now happily within the Twelve Days of Christmas, I am pleased to share this snippet by John Donne that I have borrowed from Alan Jacobs blog:  https://buttondown.email/ayjay/archive/christmas-epiphany/ John Donne, from a sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cathedral on  Christmas Day 1626 : The life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die Martyrs, but Christ was born a Martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem, where he was born; For, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the Manger as uneasy at first, as his Cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday, are but the evening and morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth, is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us, is his birth; for,  Epiphany  is manifestation; And therefore, though the Church doe now call Twelfth-day Epiphany, because...
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Vigil of Easter

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The Lutheran Church of Our Saviour hosted the Vigil of Easter this year. We were joined by the congregations of St. John's, Rensselaer; St. Luke, Rensselaer; Trinity, Goodland; St. James, Reynolds; and St. James, Logansport. I was blessed to serve at the Altar with the pastors of these congregations. May the Lord continue to bless all of our ministries in the coming days and years! Here is my brief homily for the Vigil. Easter Vigil  O Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.  Not long ago I read the Odyssey. Book 14 relays how, after many challenges and delays, Odysseus finally lands on his homeland of Ithaca. Aware that he has been gone a long time and that he is walking into circumstances that are not as he left Ithaca to fight the Trojans, he comes disguised. His first human encounter is with his loyal swineherd Eumaeus. Eumaeus does not recognize him. He says to Odysseus.  Come, old soldier, t...
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