Good Friday Passion Vespers 2024

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Other people hurt us. They hurt us with cruel words, breaking promises, or not including us. And when these things happen to us, our natural reaction is to be angry.  We might respond in kind – hurt the person back in the same way. But even if we don’t, we tend to hold onto the sin. We remember it, ruminate on it. Over the years, the grudges heap up. The grudges make us angry and bitter.

What does not come naturally is to forgive. Not just move on and pretend nothing happened, but really, truly forgive. Forgiveness is a gift worked by the Holy Spirit….

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Holy Thursday Divine Service 2024

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Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread and gave it to His disciples. And the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ immediately started to quarrel.

St. Luke tells us, “Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.” (Luke 22:24 NKJV) After this, instead of praying, they slept. Then they fought the guards, Peter slicing off a man’s ear. Then they ran.

But first, they argued. About who was greatest.

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Holy Thursday Matins 2024

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If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?

You could try to have fun. Eat your favorite food. Play a game. Watch your favorite movie one last time.

Maybe you’d try to finish up something left undone. Make sure everything was put in order. You might even have some things to get rid of. Things you don’t want anybody else to see. Things that would embarrass you….

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Palmarum 2024

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Disciples whom Jesus loves: This week is our holiest of weeks. Holy Week comes at the end of a season of self-denial, a season of repentance, a season of renewal in prayer. Has it been such a season for you? If not, you’re not alone. Lent can lead to disappointment and frustration. Instead of growing in holiness, growing as a disciple of Jesus, the season exposes our true identity. It’s all there in the Passion account: Frauds; conspirators; a pragmatist; a traitor. Lent is meant for us to discover anew the love of God. We were supposed to learn how much good can come from obedience; but it has a way of revealing our capacity for deceit, hypocrisy, laziness, and self-pity.

The Passion of St. Matthew shows them all to us….

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Psalms of Lament: Psalm 90

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The “celebrations of life” people hold now pretend that what has happened isn’t real. The funeral homes with flowers everywhere—flowers that themselves will be dead in mere days—cover with their sickening sweetness the stench of death in a corpse we’ve filled with formaldehyde to pretend none of this is really happening….

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The Marriage of Stephanie Hammond & Eric Buus

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St. John Chrysostom said that in marriage, husband and wife become companions on a journey. He says there are two kinds of marriages: those that bring great blessings to the husband and wife, their family, and their neighbors; but there are other marriages which seem to bring few blessings to anyone. The difference between the two, he says, is in the spirit of the bond in which the marriage is formed….

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Psalms of Lament: Psalm 77

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Throughout the Scriptures we see the righteous suffering. St. Paul had his thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to harass him. Job experienced the death of his children, the scorn of his wife, the rebuke of his friends, and the wasting away of his flesh. His days were spent on the dunghill, and his nights filled with bitter weeping. Abraham and Sarah spent years in barren sorrow. Isaac and Rebekah grieved over their wayward children. Jesus said that His followers should expect tribulation in this world. And St. Paul told Timothy that everyone who desires to live godly will suffer persecution….

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Laetare Sermon 2024

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Today’s Gospel begins with many disciples; there is “a great multitude [following Jesus].” But by the end of the same chapter, after Jesus teaches about the Supper, almost everyone turns around and stops following Him. They loved the loaves, they marveled at the miracles – but they could not stomach His teaching. American Christianity preaches a gospel of success; Jesus is the giver of health and wealth.

But when the cross comes, it’s very tempting to turn back and follow Him no more….

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The Wedding of Jacquelyn Morey & Tyler Stone

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“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” Everything Jesus says about love is grounded in this organic connection: Jesus the Vine, the Father the Vinedresser. We are branches joined to the vine. That means we have no life in ourselves. Our life is utterly dependent upon His. That’s the background for our Lord’s teaching about love, which comes eight verses later.

There, in Jn 15.9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Notice that the Lord does not say, “Abide in love.” It’s easy to be in love – for a time. It’s easy to feel love when we’ve set a romantic mood and there are no crosses to bear.

But Jesus is not preparing His disciples for a make-believe life. He is preparing them and us for the way of the cross….

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Psalms of Lament: Psalm 74

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The first Psalm of Lament we looked at, Psalm 6, came from fear of God’s permanent rejection after the psalmist had sinned grievously. Then last week’s Psalm was a national lament after a military defeat. Despite their fidelity to YHWH, He had still allowed them to suffer a great loss.

Tonight’s Psalm of Lament is of a still different type: it is a lament after the destruction of the Temple….

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