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April 2007 Newsletter Contents [Newsletter Archive] |
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| Pastor's Article | Vicar's Article |
| Christian Education | Parish Notes |
| Portals of Prayer |
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April 2007 Newsletter Contents [Newsletter Archive] |
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| Pastor's Article | Vicar's Article |
| Christian Education | Parish Notes |
| Portals of Prayer |
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"Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you." So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me."" (Matthew 28:1-10, ESV)
The timing could not have been accidental, these press releases by the Discovery Channel that the Oscar-winning director of Titanic, James Cameron, and another filmmaker were producing a documentary [?] on The Lost Tomb of Jesus. Basically, these two Hollywood types claim that they have found the 2,000 year old tomb containing 10 boxes of bones belonging to the family of Jesus. They also seemed to have read Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code because they claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a son.
Back to the timing. These kinds of histrionic announcements always come during the Church's most holy season, Lent. Last year Dateline NBC put forth another Jesus hater, Michael Baigent. And so it has been for some time. Just about the time that Christians are getting ready to celebrate the center of their faith, these Christ haters put forth some ridiculous theory that is so far off base as to capture the attention of every other Christ hater in the world. The sad thing is that such slander often goes unanswered in the mainstream media because those moguls tend to agree with such diabolical theories. Can you imagine the outrage worldwide there would be if the subject were Muslim? Heads would roll, literally! There would be rioting and uncompromising violence. No one seems interested in making documentaries about historical claims of Islam or any other religion. Just Christianity.
The biggest assault lies in the claim that they have the bones of Jesus. How could this be if he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father? Of course, they are claiming that Jesus was a fraud and that he never rose from the dead because he didn't die. That sounds an awful lot like Dan Brown where Jesus really didn't die from crucifixion and then he and Mary Magdalene headed off to the south of France to live out the rest of their days in blissful marriage, having a daughter. Cameron's piece has a son in place of a daughter. We wish they would make up their minds! Just a few years ago the same Discovery Channel questioned whether or not Jesus ever lived or existed! They also were involved in the alleged Ossuary of James, since declared a forgery by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The man who promoted the project is currently on trial for forging part of the inscription. The same filmmaker involved in that scam is the producer of Cameron's project. Hmmm.
"While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, "Tell people, 'His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.' And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day." (Matthew 28:11-15, ESV)
Those who were responsible for finding this particular tomb have spoken. Professor Amos Kloner said, "It makes a great story for a TV film, but it's completely impossible. It's nonsense." That's what he told the Jerusalem Post. Other recognized experts have all raised indignant complaints because these men are "pimping off the Bible," as one expert said. He likewise complained that they are making archeologists look bad. Not a single recognized archeologist has backed Cameron in this project. They seem to be running away from him as fast as possible.
In the fact of this intense criticism from experts, Jacobovici and Cameron fell back on the claim that they weren't "experts!" Both admitted that they were not archeologists, one insisting that he's a filmmaker and the other a journalist. So much for credibility! Why would they do this? If not from a hatred of Christianity then another motive certainly seems certain: money making. Sensationalism always sells, even if it is trash. Look at what our media spews forth these days.
Of course there aren't any bones of Jesus! He would have to be dead for there to be bones! The lynchpin of the Christian faith is the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave. If there is no resurrection of Jesus physically, then there is no forgiveness and no life. Then we have believed a lie and are to be pitied more than all people.
"Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 15:12-20, ESV)
Christians won't riot or burn or kill in the face of this blasphemy, but we will continue to proclaim the Gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus. We do not believe in a fiction that is not authenticated by the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses. We believe that which God himself had foretold and carried out according to divine plan for the salvation of the world.
We don't have the bones of Jesus but we do have his body and blood, given and shed for us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar! Here he is truly present for us in grace and mercy. Here he comes to us in a resurrection appearance that happens every time the Sacrament is celebrated. This Easter you will indeed see the resurrected Jesus, as you do every week in the Divine Service, in his body and blood. As you eat and drink you will notice that there are no bones.
Pastor Meyer
Postscript: Since this article was written an excellent analysis by Professor Jeffrey Kloha of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is available online. The link is: http://www.csl.edu
Look for the News section and the article title: "Professor Responds to 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus.'"
THE DANGER OF GOD GAMES
A company called Rock Star Games has, for a few years now, been making quite a bit of cash on a series of video games called Grand Theft Auto. Having no relation to the 1977 Ron Howard film of the same name, the plot of the GTA games is centered in the criminal underworld of various fictional big cities. On account of this, the player of the game must engage in all sorts of criminal activity in order to succeed-such as killing police officers, beating up prostitutes and, of course, the frequent grand theft of autos. Long gone, it seems, are the days when the most violent act one could commit through gaming was to jump on a walking mushroom.
When considering how to fight against games such as GTA, many have adopted the same battle plan found in advocates of contemporary Christian music-to replace the undesirable object with something that is stylistically similar (for the kid's enjoyment) but sanctified in actual content (for the kid's benefit). One notable example of this is the recently released video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, heavily based on the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. If you're familiar with this series, you'll find it as no surprise that the game is steeped in dispensationalist theology-the impetus of the game's action is that the rapture has occurred, leaving your team to navigate a world in absolute chaos. While the game is similar to GTA in that one spends a good deal of time running around a dangerous big city (here it's New York) and accomplishing various tasks, there's no stealing of cars or assaulting of prostitutes. Though you still have guns and can still kill people in Eternal Forces.
In the FAQ section of their website, Left Behind Games defends this aspect of the game by stating, "We have taken great care to make certain that there are real consequences for poor gamer behavior…For instance, unnecessary killing will result in lower Spirit points which are essential to winning." So while your sanctification level may drop a bit if you've shot a man in SoHo just to watch him die, you can easily make up for it by converting a few people to the forces of good later on.
Despite the game's "turn the other cheek so that you can reload!" mentality, many may still feel that Eternal Forces is greatly preferable to GTA. While this may be true in a shallow, moralizing sense, it is certainly not true in a theological sense. In fact, Eternal Forces is so loaded with false doctrine that it is can be far more harmful than anything found in the rampages of GTA.
Considering that most of the game is spent converting people after God has raptured the faithful, Eternal Forces effectively teaches that non-believers will receive a second chance at conversion. Furthermore, when the conversion of others is dependant upon how well you do your job, Eternal Forces depicts a rather cruel Christ-one who takes His responsibility of creating faith in the faithless and pawns it off on a bunch of sinful men, stuck functioning as God's Navy Seals in a worldwide quagmire. Finally, when the ultimate goal of the game is to help ready the world for Christ's return as Jerusalem's King, one can practically smell the teachings of dispensationalism, which argues that Christ's Cross is nothing more than a secondary event-having occurred only because the Jews rejection of Him delayed His true goal of establishing His throne in Jerusalem. (For a more in-depth analysis of the false doctrine found in the Left Behind Series, the LCMS's Commission on Theology and Church
Relations has provided a report that can be found here:
www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CTCR/LeftBehind.pdf.)
Christians have every right to be outraged and offended when games such as GTA glorify murderous behavior. And the numerous instances of teenagers assaulting the homeless recently could support the claim that violent video games are having a greater influence on youth than many might think. However, the ultimate goal of Satan is not encouraging people to violence but encouraging people to unbelief-that latter being what actually causes God to condemn. Remember that when the devil sought to alienate Adam and Eve from God, he didn't do it by telling them to throw rocks at each other. He did it by telling them lies about God. And the reason the lie worked so well was because it sounded so holy, because the devil hid its wickedness in a dressing of pious sounding theo-speak.
Without a doubt, GTA is abhorrent on every conceivable level. However, its blatant immorality actually makes it less harmful to one's faith. When a game offers you the opportunity to hack up innocent bystanders with a chainsaw, nobody is going to look for God's truth in the digital carnage. But when a game like Eternal Forces comes along, advertising itself as a wonderful Christian alternative, its dressing in pious sounding theo-speak will convince people to trust that it contains God's truth. And when they do trust in this, the serpent will have deceived another generation with the very same lie. While it certainly may please the devil when a video game desensitizes you to images of murder, he's far more pleased when a video game convinces you that the salvation of the world ultimately rests on your head, since Christ's death and resurrection has never been anything more than a footnote in His plan for mankind.
Vicar Hans Fiene
[Note: each month we shall endeavor to include a quote from the Lutheran Confessions about important items.]
1Tappert, T.G. (2000, c1959). The book of concord : The confessions of the evangelical Lutheran church (63). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
LIBRARY NEWS
The following pamphlets were donated to the library:
Called to Teach Children by Donald Hoeferhamp and Arnold C. Mueller
How to Teach Grades 1-4 by Kristine M. Mounds
How to Teach Grades 5-8 by Suzanne Schmieding
How to Teach Teens by Michael Heinz
How to Teach Special Students by Joan Dubberke
Inspirational Meditations for Sunday School Teachers by Richard Anderson
They are all catalogued under No. 370 and are helps for Sunday School teachers.
Dorothy Senff
SCHEDULE OF DIVINE LITURGIES
01 April Palm/Passion Sunday, 10:30 AM Divine Service 05 April Holy Thursday, 7:00 PM Divine Service 06 April Good Friday, 3:00 PM Liturgy of the Cross 06 April Good Friday, 7:00 PM Office of Tenebrae 07 April Holy Saturday, 7:00 PM Great Vigil of Easter 08 April Easter Sunday, 7:00 AM Office of Matins 08 April Easter Sunday, 10:30 AM Divine Service 11 April Wednesday, 7:00 AM Office of Matins 15 April Second Sunday of Easter, 10:30 AM Divine Service 18 April Wednesday, 7:00 AM Office of Matins 22 April Third Sunday of Easter, 10:30 AM Divine Service 25 April Wednesday, 7:00 AM Office of Matins 29 April Fourth Sunday of Easter, 10:30 AM Divine Service |
PROPERTY AND GROUNDS BOARD
Completed Activities:
Heating units were rewired to new fuse box.
New cabinets and a wardrobe were installed in the Sacristy.
A new phone system was installed to improve privacy and efficiency.
Thermocouple leads from both heating units were rewired to the east air conditioner.
A new light was installed at the back door of the parish center.
An igniter was installed in the second unit of the west furnace.
A Lutheran Trust Insurance form was filled out listing improvements to facility.
New Activities:
Clean up and remove unused wiring under the Church.
Painting of blackboards used for pre-school and hanging them in upstairs classrooms.
Installing new lights for the Church sign.
Electrical fuse boxes to be labeled and location recorded.
A workday for cleaning up the grounds and buildings will be on 14 April, 2007.
Next Property & Grounds meeting will be on 10 April 2007 at 6:30pm.
Jim Senff
Deacon - P&G Board
OUTREACH, ASSIMILATION, FELLOWSHIP REPORT
Meeting started at 6:33pm with Responsive Prayer 1. Pastor, Vicar, Brad Cress, Kara Cress, Chuck Roush, Jaymie Duerlinger, Leslie Bilyeu, Monette Harris, and Marolyn Lux attending.
Chuck and Brad reported on a conference call they attended concerning the Thrivent blood drive. It is for the Indiana Blood Center not specifically for Riley Hospital as previously thought. Thrivent hopes to have 2500 donors across the state. Terre Haute's hours are 3 - 7pm on Saturday April 28th at Trinity, and regular hours Monday the 30th at the Indiana Blood Center on South 3rd street. We need volunteers to sign up donors We would like to get 56 people from these sites, There will be a poster and bulletin inserts. People will be screened as they arrive to donate. There are door prizes and a grand prize drawing for large screen plasma TV.
The confirmation dinner is Friday, May 11th at 6:00 pm. There are 7 confirmands. This is open to the congregation.
A bulletin insert is being prepared for Habitat for Humanity volunteer sign ups. A date of Saturday, June 16th was set. Jaymie will have our members wear the yellow T-shirts that the YPI wear to identify us.
The LCMS is having an "Adopt a Home" in Biloxi, MS. April 14th - 27th and April 21st - 29th. See Pastor for details.
Monette will contact Kristin Schulz about having a baby shower. She is due in April on tax day!
A new member welcome will be held April 29th after DS Vicar will find out how many families are involved. It will be a "meet and greet" with each family briefly introducing themselves. Everyone is invited.
The 150th anniversary committee passed around papers showing what the OAF board would be involved in. It is a lengthy list. Congregational members will be recruited to help.
Meeting adjourned @ 7:37pm
Next meeting date set for April 11th at 6:30pm
Respectfully submitted,
Brad Cress
BOARD OF EDUCATION REPORT
VBS co-directors, Vicar and Katie Fiene, are busy planning our annual June event which is entitled "Remission of Sins". It will be held as it was last year with studies in the evening, a lite meal and adult studies taught by Pastor Meyer. Volunteers are needed in many areas so whether or not you are approached- please offer to help.
Be on the lookout for the YPI Easter Breakfast details.
We are looking for someone with a camera who would like to video the Confirmation Service on May 13. Please contact anyone on the board.
Upcoming dates:
Board of Education meeting April 10 at 7:00pm
VBS- June (specific dates not set)
Chuck Lux
Deacon, Board of Education
TABLE TALK
The editor has considered that this segment of each Esprit called "AND SO IT GOES . . ." was not really Lutheran enough! It could be anybody's title. Martin Luther used to sit around the dinner table and talk for hours with his friends about all kinds of topics, some of them merely reflections on what was happening in their society. In Luther's Works, American Edition, this is called "Table Talk," from the German Tischreden, which can be translated as "after dinner talk." In that spirit we have renamed this monthly column.
"Ideologies rest on the mistaken assumption that changing political arrangements will change people. But human nature remains what it always was; only the ways it expresses itself change. . . The ideologues' efforts to change human nature aren't just futile; they also calamitous, since they're marked by the very flaws that they seek to eradicate" [John Kekes, writing on "Words to Die By"]. So wrote the author about some of the greatest mass murderers in recent history, such as Robespierre, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Stalin. The only One to change human nature is Christ. All other efforts are doomed to failure.
SMILES
The young couple invited their elderly pastor for Sunday dinner. While they were in the kitchen preparing the meal, the pastor asked their son what they were having. "Goat," the little boy replied. "Goat?" replied the startled pastor. "Are you sure about that?" "Yep," said the boy, "I heard Dad say to Mom, 'Today is just as good as any to have the old goat for dinner.'"
An elderly woman approached the door of the sanctuary when a friendly usher greeted her and helped her up the five steps into the narthex. "Where would you like to sit?" he asked politely. "The front row, please," she answered. "You really don't want to do that," the usher said. "The pastor is really boring." "Do you happen to know who I am?" the woman asked. "No," he said. "I'm the pastor's mother," she replied indignantly. "Do you know who I am?" he asked. "No," she said. "Good," he answered.
"Some people need a fig leaf on their mouths" - Martin Luther