First Luteran Church
Eastr Season 2024
Much of this service is built around the AUGUSTANA LITURGY of the Swedish Synod (1925), modified. May 5
Please note our services are both live streamed and video recorded, your image may appear online. Prelude
Please stand as you are able.
P: Christ is risen!
C: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Welcome
P: Blessed be the Father, Son +, the Holy Sprit, who gives us victory over sin, death, and the Devil.
P: Lord Jesus the heavens and earth rejoice in your triumph over the grave!
C: All Creation celebrates his salvation.
P: On the mountain of the Lord, all people will feast on rich food and drink well-aged wine!
C: We praise you, O God! For you have prepared a table before us, and our cups over?low!
P: Christ has swallowed up death forever; he has wiped away the tears from all faces!
C: We shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!
P: Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us!
C: We rejoice in his salvation! (from Isa25 & Ps23)
AM: The Son of God has ransomed us to glory, the Servant of the Lord has destroyed death.
C: We worship God, who reigns on high. We exalt the Lord, for he has redeemed us!
AM: Even in tombs and the depths of Sheol, God has triumphed. On the hills and mountaintops, the Lord has called us to worship.
C: We are the chosen people of God! We are his beloved sons and daughters!
AM: God has created a new heavens and a new earth. The Lord has established Zion among all peoples.
C: Open the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
AM: This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.
C: We thank you that you have answered us and have become our salvation.
AM: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
C: This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
AM: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
C: Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever! (from Ps118 & Isa65)
Confession and Assurance of Pardon:
P: Let us acknowledge our failing before our Holy and Merciful God.
C: Merciful Father, we confess that we have sinned against you by thought, word, and deed. We have not loved you above all things, nor our neighbor as ourselves. But you have promised to receive all penitent sinners who seek refuge in your Fatherly compassion, and in the merits of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Relying upon this promise, we con?idently ask you to be merciful and gracious to us and to forgive us all our sins, to the praise and glory of your Holy Name.
P: ΚυS ριε, εW λεS ησον.
C: Lord, have mercy.
P: ΧριστεS , εW λεS ησον.
C: Christ, have mercy.
P: ΚυS ριε, εW λεS ησον.
C: Lord, have mercy.
P: Upon your sincere confession, and because of your earnest desire for the forgiveness of your sins through Jesus Christ, God, according to his promise, forgives you all your sins; and so by the authority of God’s Word and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I offer you God’s Peace; in the Name of the Father, the Son +, and the Holy Spirit.
C: Amen.
AM: Glory be to God on high, and on earth, peace, good will toward men. We praise you, we worship you, we glorify you, O Lord God, heavenly King. O Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son: the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us, and receive our prayer. You sit at the right hand of God the Father, for you are holy; Together with the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, who calls, gathers and enlightens the whole Church on earth, be all glory!
C: Amen.
P: The prophet Isaiah writes: Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isa65:24-25)
(silent reFlection)
P: The Lord be with you.
C: And with your spirit.
P: Let us pray.
C: Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the tomb you have given us the sure sign of your power to deliver us from sin and death and to renew all creation. We confess that we still fall into doubt and fear. We continue to cling to sel?ish ways and doubt your power to make all things new. Forgive our lack of faith. Have mercy on our weakness. Raise us from the death of sin that we may live with Christ in the joy of his resurrection, now and forever. Amen.
–Rev John Paarlberg,The Prayer of the Day:
LP: O God, you have prepared for those who love you joys beyond understanding. Pour into our hearts such love for you that, loving you above all things, we may obtain your promises, which exceed all we can desire; through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C: Amen. Please be seated.
The Lessons:
L: The reading from: Genesis 26 O Lord open our ears!
L: Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to the king of the Philistines. And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” So Isaac settled there. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, the king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. So he called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’” The king said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” So he warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The LORD blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of plocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. (Now the Philistines had stopped and pilled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father.) And the king said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.” So Isaac departed from there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the local herdsmen quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he said, “For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” …This is the Word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.
L: The Wisdom reading is from: Ecclesiastes 11 O Lord open our ears!
L: Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will pind it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. …This is the Word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.
Please stand as you are able.
P: The Gospel reading is from
The Holy Gospel:
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
P: Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all lesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I gloripied you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am gloripied in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulpilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulpilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctipied in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them
and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
…This is the Gospel of the Lord
C: Glory to you, O Christ!
P: Let us proclaim our faith together in the words of the Apostles’ Creed:
We believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was cruci ied, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen Please be seated.
The Sermon:
AM: May the Holy Spirit conpirm the Word in our hearts, that we daily increase in faith, hope, love, and patience unto our lives’ end. And now the God of Peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, make you perfect in every good work, working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight. (Heb. 13: 20-21)
C: Amen.
AM: The Lord be with you.
C: And with your spirit.
AM: Let us pause to pray…
The Salutation:
The Prayers of the People:
A moment of Silence is observed.
AM: Merciful God: we thank you for all your goodness to us. Sanctify and guide us through the work of your Holy Spirit, and grant that we may walk in holiness of life according to your Word. Unite, strengthen, and preserve your Church through the Word and the Holy Sacraments. Be the strength and stay of our land. Give it grace and honor. Grant health and prosperity to all in authority, especially to the President and the Congress, the Governor and Legislature of our state, and to all our Judges and Magistrates. Grant them grace to rule after your good pleasure, to the maintenance of righteousness, and to the hindrance of wrongdoing, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Guide the Leaders of the Nations who are at war, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, Haiti, Colombia, Nigeria, and Somalia. Lead them to create peace. Lord in your mercy,
C: hear us!
Help us, O God, to live together in peace and concord, with true and Christian counsel in all that we undertake. Prosper every good work and turn away from us all harm and evil. May your blessing rest upon the fruits of the earth, and give success to every lawful occupation on land, sea and air. Lord in your mercy,
C: hear us!
Let the light of your Word shine in our homes. Keep the children of your Church in the covenant which you made with them in Holy Baptism, and give all parents and teachers grace to nurture them in your truth, and reverence. Lord in your mercy,
C: hear us!
We lift before you those who are sick and those who are homebound, Gabe W., Tommy S., Barbara H., Bobby, Paul, Al G., John, Jean S., Prudence H., Wisam, Tim B., Brian O., Cat and those we name out loud or in hearts… pause. Lord in your mercy.
C: hear Us!
We pray for peace & comfort for those who grieve especially the Anderson, Raymond, Ried, and Whitney Families. Lord in your mercy.
C: hear us!
Almighty and Eternal God, you are the health and strength of all who trust in you. And pinally, when our hour is come, deliver us all from evil and bring us safely into your heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
C: Amen.
Please stand as you are able.
P: Lift up your hearts to God.
C: We lift them up unto the Lord our God.
P: Let us give thanks to the Lord.
C: It is meet and right so to do.
The Eucharist
P: It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to you, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is our Paschal Lamb, offered for us, the innocent Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He has conquered death, risen again, and lives forevermore, as will all those who put their trust in him.
The Words of Institution
P: Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat; this is my body, which is given for you; this do in memory of me.
P: In the same manner, he took the cup, and after he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of this all of you; this cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you, and for all people, for the remission of sins; do this, as oft as ye drink it, in memory of me.
The Lords Prayer
P: Behold the Lamb of God!
