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Our Saviour Parish News, March, 2024



OUR SAVIOUR LUTHERAN CHURCH

3301 The Alameda
Baltimore, MD 21218
410.235.9553
March, 2024

Holy Week and Easter

Palm Sunday – Distribution  of Palms, Procession and Divine Service, March 24, 11:00 A.M.
Maundy Thursday – Divine Service and the Stripping of the Altar, March 28, 7:30 P.M.
Good Friday – The Liturgy of Good Friday, March 29, 7:30 P.M.
Easter Eve – The Easter Vigil and the First Holy Eucharist of Easter, March 30, 7:30 P.M.
Easter Day – Festival Divine Service, March 31, 11:00 A.M.
Bible Class will not meet on Easter Day

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The last day of March is Easter Day, the glad feast of the Lord’s resurrection. The joy of Easter is so wonderfully expressed in the great Easter hymn of Saint John of Damascus (A.D. 657-749):

Now let the heavens be joyful,
   Let earth her song begin,
Let all the world keep triumph
   And all that is therein.
Let all things, seen and unseen,
   Their notes of gladness blend;
For Christ the Lord hath risen –
   Our joy, that hath no end!

In the resurrection from the dead of His only and eternal Son we see God’s purpose for the whole creation. As Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958) memorably said: “An infinite ocean of light flows from the body of the risen Lord.” Christ’s resurrection is the foundation of our faith, Christ’s resurrection is the foundation of the Church for there would be no Church had not the crucified Lord conquered death and the grave. And as the resurrection of the Savior is the foundation of the Church, so also is it the Keystone of the Church Year. For the light that shines at Christmas and Epiphany and Pentecost, the light that shines on every Sunday of the year and in all the festivals of the saints is none other than the light of the risen Lord, the cause of our eternal joy! How I wish that we 21st century Christians could recover the spirit of the ancient Church which had such a vivid sense of every Sunday as the weekly celebration of the Lord’s resurrection! If we would but realize that every Sunday is a “little Easter,” we would be very eager to join our fellow Christians to meet the risen Lord as He comes to us Sunday by Sunday in that Sacrament which the ancient fathers called “The Medicine of Immortality.” Yes, “Christ the Lord hath risen – our joy, that hath no end!”

From ancient times the Church’s celebration of the Lord’s resurrection has begun on Easter Eve with The Easter Vigil. Beginning with the lighting of the Paschal (Easter) Candle – symbol of the risen Lord with His five glorious scars, we hear the story of God’s loving purpose beginning with the story of creation and continuing with the flood and Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea in both of which our baptism into Christ crucified and risen is prefigured. Baptism follows or, if there are none to be baptized, the renewal of baptismal vows. The Litany is sung and the Vigil comes to its climax in the joyful first Holy Eucharist of Easter.

But before we come to Easter there is the Holy Week of the Lord’s passion. On Palm Sunday we join the crowds that went to greet the Savior, bearing palm branches and singing His praises as the promised Son of David who comes in the name of the Lord. Every celebration of the Holy Eucharist is a participation in that first Eucharist celebrated by the Savior in the upper room on the first Maundy Thursday. At the end of the Maundy Thursday Eucharist the altar is stripped and left bare. Since the altar is itself a symbol of Christ, the stripping of the altar reminds us that, when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, “all the disciples forsook Him and fled.”

On Good Friday we go in spirit to Golgotha and worship the Lamb slain for the sins of the whole world, “God’s own sacrifice complete” (Hymn 436). From ancient times the Passion according to Saint John has been read on Good Friday, the Passion history which emphasizes the victory won through the Son of God’s passion and death. It is Saint John who records our Lord’s “last triumphant cry” (Hymn 420): “It is finished!” We also join in praying the Bidding Prayer which since ancient times has been prayed on this day. In it we pray for all for whom Christ died, the whole Church and the whole world.

My hope is that we will all make an effort to be present as we remember these mighty acts whereby we have been given pardon for our sins, life and immortality. In addition to the evening Liturgy of Good Friday here at Our Saviour there will also be the customary Tre Ore Service at Bethlehem Church (4815 Hamilton Avenue) from 12:00 noon-3:00 P.M. Baltimore pastors will preach on the Seven Last Words of Jesus. If you are hesitant to go out after dark, this service is an opportunity to keep Good Friday. Few people stay for the whole three hours: come when you can, leave when you must.

The Concordia University Nebraska A Capella Choir will sing at Immanuel Church, Loch Raven and Belvedere, on Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00 P.M. They will be joined by the choir of Concordia Preparatory School in Towson. The Concordia Nebraska Choir is on a concert tour of the east coast.

Remember the Lenten Vespers which will be held on March 6, 13, and 20. Vespers with the Litany begins at 7:30 P.M. There is a soup supper at 6:30 P.M. Donations made at the soup suppers will help us provide gifts cards for needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year we have been having a good attendance at these midweek services and suppers. If you need a ride to church on Wednesdays or on Sundays, please do not hesitate to email me at charlesmcclean42@gmail.com or call me at (410) 554-9994. And please do not forget to let me know when you or a loved one is sick or in need of pastoral care. That’s what pastors are for!

Our dear brother in Christ, Gregory Dixon, fell asleep in the Lord on Thursday, February 22nd. May the Light perpetual ever shine upon him and may the risen Savior comfort his family and all who mourn with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. His funeral will be held here on Tuesday, March 19th, at 10:30 A.M. with visitation beginning at 10:00 A.M.

As we approach Holy Week and Easter we are painfully aware of the devastation of the on-going wars in Ukraine and the Holy Land and in other parts of the world. Let me remind you that you can provide help through our Synod’s LCMS World Relief and Human Care. You can give by calling Synod’s Contributor Care Line 888-930-4438 or you can give online at lcms.org/givenow/mercy or you can send a check to LCMS World Relief and Human Care, PO Box 66861, Saint Louis, MO 63166-6861. Make your check payable to The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and write LCMS World Relief and Human Care on the memo line. And do remember to support the GEDCO Food Pantry and the Helping Up Mission. Boxes for donations can be found just inside the door which opens on the parking lot north of the church.

Remember in your prayers all those for whom our prayers are desired: Bridget Bauman, James Bauman, Louis Bell, Dana Carmichael, Timothy Doswell, Quilla Downs, Bunny Duckett, Steve and Joyce Eaves, Albert Ford, Frank Ford, Iris Ford, Yolanda Ford, Sean Fortune, Sherry James, Gloria Jones, Althea Masterson, Christ Mokris, Marion Rollins, Julia Silver, Robert Siperek Jr.,Julia Silver, Lawrence Smallwood, George Volkman, Gary Watson, Juliana Watson, Dennis Watson. Yolanda Ford remains at Future Care, 1046 North Point Road, Baltimore, MD 21224. Louis Bell remains at Autumn Lake Healthcare, 700 Sudbrook Road, Pikesville, MD 21208.

Here is a prayer which can be used as we approach Holy Week and Easter.

Assist us mercifully with Thy help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts whereby Thou hast given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast!
(I Corinthians 5:7)

Affectionately in our Lord,

Pastor McClean

Invocavit Midweek Vespers

gate-of-heaven-violet-1024x1024Invocavit Midweek Vespers

February 21, 2024 AD

Psalm 40
Matthew 26:30–56
THE PREACHING OF THE PASSION: GETHSEMANE
Wednesday after Invocavit 2024

In our Lenten services this year we will be meditating on the passion of our Lord as recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Last year we meditated on the Passion as recorded in Saint Luke’s Gospel. And of course all four Gospels tell of our Lord’s Passion in considerable detail. Now WHY God has given us not just ONE but FOUR Gospels which tell of the life and death and resurrection of His Son, we simply do not know though it may well be that just one telling of this story couldn’t possibly unfold all the riches of Christ’s saving life and death and resurrection.

In ONE HARMONIOUS witness
The chosen FOUR combine;
While each HIS OWN commission
Fulfills in EVERY line.

And so THIS year we consider the Passion according to Saint Matthew,-who was one of the Twelve Apostles and so had in fact been an eye witness to the public ministry, passion and resurrection of the Lord.

As we begin these meditations on the passion, we might well remember the words Moses heard when the angel of the Lord called to him out of the burning bush: “Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Now all of Holy Scripture is holy ground – because in all of Holy Scripture the Holy Spirit is pointing to Christ – but the story of Jesus’ Passion is in-a real sense Scripture’s “Holy of holies” because there as nowhere else we catch a glimpse of “what no eye has seen nor ear heard-nor the heart of man conceived,” that love of God beyond understanding, the lengths to which that love will go to reclaim the human creatures who have taken up arms against Him; here we see what it cost God to redeem and save us – each and every one.

And what did it cost our Maker to redeem and save us? We catch a glimpses of that cost in the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane: “My Father, if it be possible, lei this CUP pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as you will.”

And what is that cup? We read in the 75th Psalm: “It is God who executes judgment… for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup… and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.” And there are many similar passages in the Old Testament in which the word “cup” speaks of God’s judgement, God’s wrath, “a cup… all the wicked of the earth shall drain, down to the dregs” Yet here the holy Jesus who knew no sin, who is Himself the Light and Life of God, Himself pure overflowing love which knows no end, faces the terrible prospect of draining the “cup prepared for the wicked’ – the cup of God’s wrath against sin.

Now God’s wrath is not like yours and mine! There is nothing in it of pettiness, of spite, of vindictiveness, of pleasure at the misery of one who has offended us, who has become our enemy; yet it still is wrath, the reaction of the altogether holy and loving God to the sin which disfigures and destroys His beloved human creatures. Because in His baptism the sinless Son of God had taken His place among sinners under the judgment of God, He now must – though Himself holy and sinless – drink the cup of wrath prepared for the wicked, drain to the dregs that bitter cup.

No wonder Jesus prays that this cup may be taken away from Him! But his prayer really is prayer, not a demand; He doesn’t set His own will over against the will of His Father, for the wish He expresses depends completely on the will of the Father: “Father, if it is Your will to take this cup from Me; nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.” Jesus never ceases always to pray in perfect union with the Father will and willingly goes – to the cross.

Preaching on the passion only months before his own difficult death from cancer, Dom Gregory Dix had this to say:

The spiritual agonies of the passion – the final grappling with the iniquity of sin by the soul of Jesus – is something we cannot hope to understand, because we are sinful and He, though tempted in all things as we are, was entirely sinless. We can only connect this dreadful inner conflict with the statement of Saint Paul, “God made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

“What no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the human heart of conceived,” the lengths to which the love of God will go to reclaim the human creatures who have taken up arms against Him! The Son of God takes on Himself all that is ours that He might give us all that is His – the “happy exchange” so often spoken of by the-ancient fathers and by . Luther. The incarnate Son of God drains the bitter cup of wrath so that He might give you and me and all poor sinners the blessed cup – of salvation.

Saint Matthew tells us that, before Jesus and His disciples left the upper room to go to Gethsemane, they “sang a hymn.” And since it was the Feast of Passover that hymn was almost certainly the so-called Great Hallel of the-Psalter, Psalm 111 through Psalm 118 in which we find this verse, “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Jesus had that very night taken in His hands the cup, had given thanks, and had made of the wine in that cup His blood, and then on the cross poured out His blood in death so that just as the angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites marked with the blood of the Passover Lamb, so the cup of wrath might pass from us who by baptism and faith are washed in the blood of the true Passover Lamb.

“I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord!” Because of that cup of salvation, in which our sins are dead and nevermore remembered in all eternity, we have the absolute assurance that when the cup of suffering does pass our lips, as it surely must for each and every one, there is nothing in it of wrath or judgement but only a means whereby we are more fully conformed to the image of Him who suffered the judgement we deserve under the wrath of God, our merciful Savior, who through the cross – both His and ours – leads  us to our joyful resurrection.

Amen.

Click here to listen and subscribe to Pastor McClean’s sermons on iTunes.

Our Saviour Parish News, February, 2024



OUR SAVIOUR LUTHERAN CHURCH

3301 The Alameda
Baltimore, MD 21218
410.235.9553
February, 2024

ASH WEDNESDAY
Divine Service with the Imposition of Ashes
February 14, 7:30 P.M.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Once again we are about to begin our annual journey through Lent and Holy Week to Easter. Although Christmas is a more popular festival, which is in various ways celebrated even by those who do not see in the Child born of Mary our God and Savior, it is Easter that is for Christians the Feast of Feasts, the Holy Day of Holy Days, the Crown of the Christian Year, and all the seasons and festivals of the Christian Year (including Christmas) only make sense in the light of the Day of the Lord’s resurrection.From ancient times Christians have felt the need to prepare for Easter and that is why the Church has always the holy season of Lent in preparation for the glad feast of the Lord’s resurrection.

On Ash Wednesday there will as usual be Divine Service with imposition of ashes at 7:30 P.M. On the following Wednesdays there will be Vespers and Litany at 7:30 P.M. preceded by a soup supper at 6:30. Offerings given at the soup supper will be used to provide gift certificates for needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year the meditations at the Lenten Vespers will be based on the Passion as narrated by Saint Matthew. In using the Litany at Lenten Vespers we remember that Dr. Luther once said that after the Lord’s Prayer itself the Litany is “the best prayer that can be made” It was Pastor Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872), that great 19th century father of the faithful Lutheran Church who founded the Seminary in Fort Wayne and then gave it to our Synod, who had this to say about the Litany: “Beginning with adoration, confessing Christ in its heart, it ends with the lovely Agnus [O Lamb of God…have mercy] which leads our thoughts to eucharistic heights…how evangelical, how entirely agreeable to our Church.”

The A Capella Choir of Concordia University Nebraska will give a concert of sacred and secular music at Immanuel Church, Loch Raven and Belvedere, at 7:00 P..M. on Thursday, March 7th. This choir of 72 auditioned voices has performed both internationally and throughout the United States. The Upper School Choir of Concordia Preparatory School in Towson will open the evening and will sing with the A Capella Choir. There is a need for people willing to provide lodging for members of the choir on the night after the concert. If you are interested, you may email
averykaser@concordiaprepschool.org.

The Epiphany Choral Vespers on January 21st, was a wonderful celebration of the new organ console which had been dedicated to the memory of Joseph Silver last October. I am sure that everyone will agree that Cameron Kuzepski, our guest organist for this service, is a remarkably gifted organist, composer, and choirmaster. It was a real treat to hear him play and to hear the quartet which sang settings of Psalm 72 and the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) which he had composed. This service was well attended and the reception that followed was delightful. We are much indebted to everyone who helped make this happen. I am hoping that we can from time to time have such choral Vespers on Sunday afternoons. Such services provide a good opportunity to invite our friends who attend other churches and those who are unchurched to worship with us.

Helen Gray, our dear sister in Christ, fell asleep in the Lord early in the morning on Thursday, January 11th. She was given Christian burial following the funeral service here at church on Saturday, January 20th. May the Light perpetual ever shine upon her and may the risen Lord comfort all who mourn with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection!

Remember in your prayers all those for whom our prayers are desired: Bridget Bauman, James Bauman, Louis Bell, Dana Carmichael, Timothy Doswell, Quilla Downs, Bunny Duckett, Steve and Joyce Eaves, Albert Ford, Frank Ford, Iris Ford, Yolanda Ford, Sean Fortune, Sherry James, Gloria Jones, Althea Masterson, Chris Mokris, Marion Rollins, Elaine Schwab, Julia Silver, Robert Siperek Jr., Lawrence Smallwood, George Volkman, Gary Watson, Dennis Watson. Yolanda Ford remains at Future Care, 1046 North Point Road, Baltimore, MD 21224. Louis Bell remains at Autumn Lake Healthcare, 700 Sudbrook Road, Pikesville, MD 21208.

When we see terrible suffering in so many parts of the world, such as the ongoing wars in Ukraine and in the Holy Land, we can have a sense of helplessness in the face of so much needless suffering. But one way to provide help is through Synod’s LCMS World Relief and Human Care. You can give online through this secure website: lcms.org/givenow/mercy or you can call Synod’s Contributor Care Line: 888-930-4438. Or you can send a check to LCMS World Relief and Human Care, PO Box 66861, Saint Louis, Missouri 63166-6861. Make your check payable to “The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod” and write “LCMS World Relief and Human Care” on the memo line.

We learn in Holy Scripture that the Lord Jesus began His earthly ministry in this way: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14,15). Lent is a “penitential season” when we are especially conscious that – as Dr. Luther said in the first of his 95 Theses – “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says, ‘Repent,’ he intended that the whole life of Christians should be one of repentance.” Both the Greek and the Hebrew word for repentance show that repentance is a change of heart, a change that God alone can work in us as we listen to His word of judgment and mercy. For Christians every day is a day of repentance. Lent is the season of the Christian Year that we are most especially conscious that this is so, and therefore we are called to examine our lives in the light of God’s Word. So consider your life in the light of the Ten Commandments or in the light of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7) or in the light of Saint Paul’s catalog of “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatins 5:19-24). And then confess your sins to the Lord. And remember that – as we are taught in the Fifth Chief Part of the Catechism, The Office of the Keys and Confession – pastors are always willing to hear the confession of penitent sinners. The hymnal we use in fact provides a form for individual confession and absolution at page 292. I am always willing to answer any questions about this. Call me at (410) 554-9994 or email me at charlesmcclean42@gmail.com. As a dear friend of mine likes to say: “In private confession we learn not so much how sinful we are but how forgiven we are.”

The Lord’s People are in the Lord’s House at the Lord’s Own Service every Lord’s Day. May it be said of us as it was of the first Christians: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

Affectionately in our Lord,

Pastor McClean