Pastor David Nehrenz
tlcnormanpastor@gmail.com
FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear Disciples of Jesus,
March 2 is Transfiguration Sunday. It is the climax of the Epiphany season.
The Epiphany season highlights the reality of Jesus as the Light of the world. It began with the Magi following the star from the Father in heaven, guiding them to Bethlehem. It culminates with the disciples hearing the voice from the Father in heaven, speaking to them on the high mountain. The darkness is driven out by the bright Light of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do live in his Light every day!
The 40 days of Lent begin on Ash Wednesday March 5. This is a time for prayer, fasting and repentance over the sin of taking God’s gifts for granted. Instead, do not neglect your holy obligation to be present among the saints in receiving God’s gifts to us and offering your bodies as living sacrifices to God, holy and pleasing in His sight! Be with us for all of our Lenten services! Read about these services in the Worship Services section.
I remember how much I enjoyed going to the Lenten and Holy Week services when I was a child. The first evening Lenten services usually started in the dark of winter. Gradually, as we came closer to Holy Week, the days led us into the spring season. The services focused, as they still do today, on the sufferings and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. This left a big impression on me as a child.
Be sure to bring your children to the special services during this season. You will not realize till later the important spiritual impact these services have on your children. We are shaped and formed by the Word of God and prayer as they come to us in readings, lessons, hymns, psalms and liturgy. These affect your children in ways we often don’t see till they are adults. May your whole family be present with us as you make it a priority in your home!
The Holy Week Services will begin with Palm Sunday on April 13 with both 8:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Divine Services of Holy Communion. Special hymns and music with the choir and the children will prepare for us the events of Holy Week.
We encourage you to attend the worship services taking us to the Cross of Calvary.
The ancient tradition of these Lenten and Passiontide services draws us into the wondrous love of God in the Divine Drama by which He intervened in human history. And Divine Drama it is indeed!
In our Lord Jesus Christ,
Pastor Nehrenz
Vicar Tanner Sawall
tlcnormanvicar@gmail.com
FROM THE VICAR
March has arrived and with it the season of Lent. As written of previously, Lent is a season of penitence and mourning over our many sins and iniquities with which we daily offend the only One who has loved us so perfectly and purely. This bears repeating: the penitence and mourning is not a result of an immature faith impelled solely by fear of the punishments of God, but one primarily derived from the Gospel.
This is the source of our penitence – God’s love towards us who have hated Him by word and deed. This is a godly mourning. Consider the words of the Lord in Hosea. The Lord God commanded Hosea to “take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” God, even in His terrible judgement, showed them His steadfast love by providing for Israel a picture, a sign, for them to see that they might turn and repent. Israel was playing the whore by celebrating “the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot Me, declares the Lord.”
The Israelites were given all that they needed to support their body and life. God as Israel’s husband provided for her, as any good and faithful husband does. And yet in her wealth and prosperity, she forgot He who gave her all these things. She foolishly believed it was the work of her lovers and foreign gods fashioned by her own hands.
How often do we attribute our own successes to ourselves? How often are we deluded to think we have a modicum of control over our lives? “It was my hard work that has done this, I have brought myself out of trouble, I have performed well,” says the forgetful fool.
And yet… who hasn’t said this in their heart? Who hasn’t fled in times of need or danger to anything and everything other than the Lord who unfailingly rescues? Are we not the same as Israel? Do we not play the whore with our spiritual whoredom in all our myriad of ways?
We cry out to the Lord to not sign that certificate of divorce and send us away because of our infidelity. We cry out because we know that “He delights in steadfast love.” (Micah 7:18) This is the reason we have Lent, to solemnly observe our Lord approaching the cross to attain for us the solution to our constant infidelity. This sojourning of Jesus to the cross – God’s declaration of love for us – grants to us the divine invitation to repent, to have contrition.
Hear the voice of Jesus calling, “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” (Joel 2:13) And as we continue this season of Lent, remember in your penitence that God’s mercies are new every single morning.
