Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

Do not be afraid!  Because of Easter we are secure and our future is secure!  For the powers of death have been defeated already and no matter how they rage and what power or authority they claim, Christ has already won the victory!   Christ is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Today we have a new commandment. Come listen to the sermon from the Maundy Thursday Service.

This is the gospel from the 2017 Palm Sunday Service at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of Lenten Love Song from the Chancel Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. 

This is a special performance of All Glory, Laud and Honor by the Faith Bells Bell Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

As we experience this last Lenten service focusing on Luther’s Small Catechism, our topic is Holy Communion. Christians have many names for this meal. It is sometimes called the Sacrament of the Altar to emphasize the importance of  Christ’s sacrifice for our sin. More often it is referred to as Holy Communion to accent the intimate bond created between those  who come to the meal and its host, Jesus Christ. Some also refer to this meal as the Eucharist, a Greek term meaning “thanksgiving.” And, in the New Testament, the name most often used is the Lord’s Supper, identifying whose supper it is – it is the Lord’s Supper, not our supper.

Discussion panel participants include: The Honorable Donald L. Allen, Jr. – Chief Judge, 55th Judicial Court Angela Waters Austin – President and CEO of One Love Global, Inc. LaShawn Erby – Author, Social Justice Warrior, Community Organizer Nathaniel Lake, Jr. – Elder within The Turning Point of Lansing Rev. Kenneth Ponds – Retired ELCA Chaplain (Starr Commonwealth, Albion) Moderator – Milton L. Scales – President of M.L. Scales & Associates, LLC SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE  PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES Judge Donald L. Allen, Jr.: is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., was appointed judge of the 55th District Court by Governor Jennifer Granholm in 2008.  He was elected to the bench in 2010 and reelected in 2016. Judge Allen was appointed chief judge of the court by the Michigan Supreme Court on January 1, 2016. The Honorable Donald L. Allen, Jr., is a 1983 graduate of Wayne State University Law School and spent most of his professional career as an assistant attorney general in the Michigan Departmen

Even though we travel through the reality of loss and reversals, defeats and disappointments, and even death, none of these things have the last word.  Everything that entombs us in multiple ways will not have the last word.  In fact, we ourselves do not have the last word.  God alone has the last word.  God has rolled away the stone that blocks our lives and seals us off from life itself.  Jesus’ life-giving command to, “Come out!” is a call to each one of us!  Come forth and live into a life of love, a life of hope and a life of grace. 

This is a special performance of This Do in Remembrance of Me by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

In order to encourage and strengthen our confidence that the message of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is true and that it can deliver what it promises, Jesus twice connected physical signs to his spoken words. He connected water to his promise of life and, right before he died, he took the simple elements of bread and wine and bound them to the promise of the forgiveness of our sin.

Like the blind man in today's story, Jesus heals our blindness and invites us to see things differently.  Then we hear the most sublime words imaginable, “Go, wash.” And, as the cool and refreshing waters of life wash over us – those baptismal waters in which we daily live – our eyes and our hearts are opened to behold the living Christ, standing as the chains of death and hell lay broken at his feet.  There is no other response than to raise our voice and cry out at last, “Lord! I believe!”

This is a special musical performance of Lonesome Valley by the Chancel Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of Were You There by the Joyful Noise Children's Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of He's My Best Friend by the Joyful Noise Children's Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

Matthew and Luke’s gospels tell us that the followers of Jesus asked him how to pray. In answer, Jesus taught them to pray and he did this by offering a prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer not only teaches how to pray, it opens us to the things for which Christ would have us pray. The Lord’s Prayer is divided into sections. It begins with an introduction, followed by seven petitions, then ends with a doxology.

What is keeping you from living into the fullness of life God desires for you?  Jesus invites you to come to the well of living water and discover that the God of the universe accepts you as you are. Come and meet the one who knows you inside and out and loves you anyway.  Come and meet the one who will teach you what life is really about.  Come and meet the one who will quench your burning thirst with living water.  Come and meet the one who bathes you in healing water, showers you with love and forgiveness and sets you free!  You do not have to hide any longer.  Come, meet this Jesus who loves you so much he will go to the cross for you.  Come, live into the life God calls you to live, life that truly matters.  And, yes, this life is all gift!!!

This is special performance of Living Water by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir.

This is a special presentation of Let Us Break Bread Together by the Faith Bells.

The Apostles’ creed ends where it begins – with the gift of abundant life.  As creator, God gave us life as a sheer gift.  As redeemer, Jesus Christ took our lives from the clutches of sin. As Spirit, God ushers us into a community of faith where life is lived to the fullest (even in the midst of suffering and death) and where the promise of endless new life is ever before us.

There is a deep, gnawing hunger for love and there is a deep, gnawing hunger for God in our culture and in the world.  And, the good news is that, in the person of Jesus, we discover a God who loves this broken, God-hating world and our very broken selves so deeply that no one can escape God’s all-encompassing, unconditional love.