https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RSI8H25uwk&t=4802s

Christ, the Lord of Life  – FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT – March 26, 2023

ZION EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH – LCMS – 700 Main St.  P.O. Box 220   Clyman, WI  53016

 Pastor Dan 1-(920)-341-2025     shepherdatzion@gmail.com

AS WE GATHER- Christ the Lord of Life!  His disciples, Mary, Martha and those who know Him, still did not believe in who He truly was, the Lord of life!  He brought Lazarus back to life after being dead for 4 days, so that His Father would be glorified and those who witnessed it could believe in Him as the Messiah.  This miracle of life after death sealed His fate in the hearts and minds of the religious leaders who rejected Him as the Messiah God had sent.  Jesus had to die.  Without knowing it, Caiaphas would bring to light the Fathers plan to give life to all who would believe in His Son.  “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”  That was the Father’s plan.  Through the death of one man, Jesus Christ, His Messiah, and His resurrection after 3 days in the tomb, forgiveness and life everlasting, would come to all who would believe in Him as their Lord and Savior.     

Ringing of the Bell and Welcome

Hymn *vs1&2, 6&7**  “Christ, the Life….”             LSB 420

Invocation- In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.    Amen

Opening Sentences   Psalm 116:1–4, 8-9; antiphon: v. 15 – Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.      I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.  Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.  The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.  Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, save me!”  For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Confession and Absolution- Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You and worthily magnify Your holy name; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord.  Amen.  Humble yourselves before God, confess your sins to Him, and implore His forgiveness.    Almighty God, merciful Father, we acknowledge our sinful nature and repent of our sins—those we do not know that we have done and those we know we have done.  We do not always love You and other people as You ask us to.  We are often careless with Your gifts given to us.  O Lord we are sorry.  We want to live according to Your will.  We want to honor You in our lives in all that we say and do.  For the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord, grant us Your forgiveness so that, as Your redeemed people, we may be fit temples for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and serve You in time and in eternity.   God be gracious to you and strengthen your faith.  In the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Be at peace as your sins are forgiven.   Amen.

 Salutation The Lord be with you.     And with thy spirit.

 Prayer of the day- O God the Holy Spirit, You are a gift and a blessing sent to us by our Lord Himself.  You call us from death and despair to faith and faithfulness and assure us of  our own resurrection from death and life in Christ to live here on earth until His return in full power and glory.  Until that day enlighten our hearts that we may rejoice in the power and blessing of Your daily presence in and among us. This we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who with You and the Father are one God, world without end.    Amen.

Psalm Psalm 130; antiphon: v. 7 – O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.  I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.

Old Testament Reading   Ezekiel 37:1–14 – (Life is restored in the valley of the dry bones.)

 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.  He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”  Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!  This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.  I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.  Then you will know that I am the Lord.'”  So I prophesied as I was commanded.  And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.  I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.  Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'”  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet–a vast army.  Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’  Therefore, prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.  Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.  I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land.  Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.'”

 Epistle   Romans 8:1–11   (Life in the Spirit through Christ) – Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.  Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Gradual and Verse – Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.”  O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” 

Holy Gospel  John 11:1–53 – (Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead)

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the eleventh chapter.  Glory to You, O Lord.

Now a man named Lazarus was sick.  He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.  So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”  When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”  Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.  Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”  “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?”  Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight?  A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light.  It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.”  After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”  His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.”  Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.  So then he told them plainly,  “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.  But let us go to him.”  Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.  Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.  When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.  “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”  Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”  Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”  And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside.  “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.”  When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.  Now Jesus had not yet entered the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him.  When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.  “Where have you laid him?” he asked.  “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.  Jesus wept.  Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”  But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”  Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.  It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.  “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”  Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  So they took away the stone.  Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”  When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”  Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.  But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.  “What are we accomplishing?” they asked.  “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all!  You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”  He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.  So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.   Praise to You, O Christ.

 Hymn *vs1, 9&10, 4*  “O Christ, Who Shared…”    LSB 552

Sermon

 Nicene Creed – I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.    And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.    And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life X of the world to come.    Amen.

Prayers of the Church- Lord’s Prayer – Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.      Amen.

 ** We gather our Tithes and Offerings **

 Service of the Sacrament   

Preface   2 Timothy 4:22 – The Lord be with you.  And also with you.  Lift up your hearts.  We lift them to the Lord.  Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

Sanctus  LSB 208 – 

Prayer of Thanksgiving – Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of all creation, for all You have done for Your people in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We thank You for the ministry of our Lord Jesus, who brought healing and hope to those whose lives He touched. We rejoice that by His death and His glorious resurrection, we know Him as the one who has given us everlasting life.  Grant that all who partake of His holy body and blood this day be filled with Your heavenly peace and joy.  By Your Spirit’s power and presence, grant that we gratefully share the fellowship of Your Table, which extends into heaven with all Your saints who celebrate the same wedding feast in glory.  This we ask through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

The Words of Our Lord – Consecration of the Elements

Proclamation of Christ     1 Corinthians 11:26; Revelation 22:20 – As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.   Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Pax Domini – The peace of the Lord be with you always.   And also with you.  Amen.

Agnus Dei      LSB 210

We Celebrate our Lord’s Supper

 Distribution Hymns:  “Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense”    LSB 741  “Jesus Lives!  The Victory’s Won”  LSB 490             “Be Still, My Soul”  LSB 752

 Post-Communion Canticle

Nunc Dimittis LSB 211

 Post-Communion Thanksgiving – We give You thanks, Father, for the life and knowledge You have revealed to us through Jesus, Your Son. To You be glory forever. We bless You for having fed us with the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, assuring us thereby that we are truly members of His Body, the Church. Sanctify us by the working of Your Holy Spirit that we may continue in this fellowship and do the good works that You desire us to do as we await the final resurrection and fullness of Your heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, to whom, with You and the same Spirit, be all honor and glory, forever and ever.    Amen.

 Benediction – The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.     Amen.

 Hymn:  “Thanks to Thee, O Christ, Victorious”     LSB 548

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*Announcements*

From the Board of Stewardship and Evangelism:   Romans 8:1 – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is the joy of the Gospel! There is no condemnation for us before the throne of God because in His love He has provided salvation for us in Christ. We have been set free. We are His children once again, and coheirs with Christ of all the blessings of heaven. If this does not make us thankful, nothing will!

The Pewpoint – THEME OF THE DAY – Jesus Christ Is the Resurrection and the Life

 The illness and death of Lazarus happened “that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus prompted His arrest and crucifixion, whereby He would die “for the nation” and gather “into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51–52). As He called Lazarus from the tomb and commanded others to “unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:44), Jesus also calls us and releases us from the bondage of sin and death. We would not “submit to God’s law,” nor could we “please God” (Rom. 8:7–8), but “he condemned sin” in His own flesh so “that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3–4). Now through the Gospel, “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells” in us (Rom. 8:11). His Word breathes His Spirit into our mortal flesh, animating us with His own life. As His ministers preach according to His divine command

YES IN CHRIST  —  Saying Yes With Our Treasures    Needed per week to make budget: $3,072

Envelopes $2610   Plate $7    Music Fund   $20     Pew Repair: Eli Dornfeld $50

Attendance:  Sunday Service: 57   Communed:    46   Lent Service:  26    Communed:    24

Upcoming Events and Opportunities

March 29th    –  Lent Service 7pm

April 6^th – Maundy Thursday @ 7pm

April 7^th – Good Friday @ 1pm

April 9^th –Easter Services @ 630am & 830am – with Easter    Breakfast between services

 Happy Birthday Wishes to

Mary	3/30
Nancy	3/30
Levi	3/31
Caden	4/1
Carley	4/1
Faye	4/4
Nancy	4/5
Rita	4/8
Holley	4/12
Laurel	4/14
John	4/14
Heather	4/20
Betsy	4/21
Chad	4/23
Gary	4/23
Daniel	4/28
Lonnie	4/28
Shannon	4/28
Daniel	4/30

Happy Anniversary to Scott & Debby	4/9
Joshua & Holley	4/23

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s an Easter Sign-up sheets for the Breakfast. If you can spare time to set up or work for the breakfast please put the time that works for you. Also if you want to donate for the breakfast you sure can do that.

 

There’s also a sign-up sheet for Easter Flowers – let’s make the altar as beautiful as we can.