May 26, 2024
Speaker: Pastor James Enderle
No Christian teaching demonstrates that we have a top-down faith more than the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Scripture teaches that there is only one God. Yet that God exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Incomprehensible! It is the type of teaching about which the psalmist declares, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalm 139:6). We believe in the Triune God without fully comprehending His existence, simply because the Spirit has given us the gift of faith. Our belief in the Triune God came from the top down.
Not only is the concept of the Trinity itself something unique to the Christian faith, but what the Triune God does for us and offers us is also completely unique. Our Triune God invites us into the blessed relationship that is part of His very nature. The members of the Trinity share with us an intimacy that they have enjoyed with each other from eternity. Our Triune God makes us not servants or subjects but blessed members of His family.
March 30, 2024
Series: Easter Vigil, Triduum
Speaker: Pastor James Enderle
Topic: baptism, Communion, Faith, Free, Holy, Lessons, Light, Salvation, Thanksgiving, Victorious
In the early church the Easter Vigil was when the catechumens were baptized and received their first Communion. Baptism remains a central focus in the Vigil today. Even when there are no baptisms the congregation takes the time to remember their own baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. The service traditionally was held late at night so that the pastor’s statement, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen” and the people’s response would be at midnight.
The Triduum (TRID-oo-um, “three days”) refers to the time from worship on Maundy Thursday until the final worship of Easter Day. The “Three Holy Days” of the passion and resurrection of Christ is the culmination of the entire church year. It is over these days – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter – that we celebrate God’s redeeming love in the dying and rising of His Son, Jesus, and still see that love today. The Triduum is a single celebration. Once we have begun the Triduum on Maundy Thursday, we do not “leave” it until Easter Sunday. It is one continuous celebration of dying and rising, with Christ.
February 25, 2024
Series: Rethinking Religion, Sundays in Lent
Speaker: Pastor James Enderle
We know that the cross was an instrument of torture and execution. However, Scripture also uses the term “cross” to refer to any suffering that one endures because he is believer: the painful denial of the desires of the flesh; ridicule and persecution from unbelievers; etc. This is one reason people reject religion. They see Christians struggling in life with these crosses, while non-Christians often seem perfectly happy. Even the prophet Jeremiah asked, “Why do all the faithless live at ease?” (12:1).
Today, Jesus asks us to rethink suffering under the cross. It is not pointless pain. Our crosses are not how we pay for sin. Jesus already did that on His cross. Our crosses are not redemptive, but they are constructive. Any suffering unbelievers face is only bad, a foretaste of worse to come. But the suffering believers face under the cross is only good, a way Christ connects us tightly to Himself with fire-tested faith.
December 17, 2023
Speaker: Pastor Rik Krahn
Manitowoc Lutheran High School Sunday with the MLHS Lancer Singers.