Advent Lutheran Church (ELCA)

Check out Grace Matters, a radio program of the national Lutheran Church

If you're sitting at your computer and need something to listen to, click on over to Grace Matters, an eclectic mix of programs about all things "churchy."  You can learn about efforts to end poverty, listen to some original music by a fellow Lutheran, learn more about injustices in the world, and get a little Bible teaching along the way. This radio program, formerly called "Lutheran Vespers," has been around since 1947, but it's changed with the times! You can download their programs now to your iPod, if you're cool enough to have one!

What's "good" about Good Friday?

Good Friday is April 6 this year and this is when Christians worldwide mark the dark day on which Jesus was crucified on a cross.  The day is usually observed with prayer vigils, fasting, and perhaps a solomn service sometimes called Tenebrae, a service meant to represent Jesus' death. Tenebrae is Latin for darkness.

I'm not at all sure where this service was when I was a child. I don't think we held one at my suburban Lutheran church. But later, as a young adult in a very old congregation, I witnessed my first Tenebrae service and my memory of it can get me all choked up to this day. It was extremely moving.  In this very large church building, lights were distinguished one by one throughout the service. At the last, the altar was stripped of all of its decoration, its Lenten season clothes removed.  Finally, a black cloth was hung on the cross, in the place where Jesus' body would have been. The congregation left the church in silence and in total darkness.

Ah, but the people in darkness will see a great light.

Maundy Thursday, and other ponderables

With Maundy Thursday coming up on April 5, I got to thinking, "What does 'Maundy' really mean, anyway. I should know this, as a good Lutheran. So, I went to the source of all knowledge these days--Wikipedia--and found this entry, where I learn that we really are commemorating four events in one little service on that one evening:  1) the washing of the Disciple's feet by Jesus Christ, 2) the institution of the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, 3) the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and 4) the betrayal of Christ by Judas.

Well, if that's not an invitation to a special service, I don't know what is! Oh, and what about that whole "Maundy" thing? Here's Wikipedia's take on it:

The word Maundy, used only in this context, is generally held to be derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" (A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34) by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet.

Love one another as I have loved you.  Good advice, don't you think?

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What the heck's a Lutheran, anyway?

If you're like most people around New England, what you know of Lutherans is probably from Garrison Keillor's radio show "Prairie Home Companion". That's because his show comes from Minnesota, where you can swing a cat and pretty much be sure of hitting a Lutheran. But, really, we're everywhere.  A long time ago, we were all divided up among various immigrant groups--Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Fins, and Germans. (The original Lutheran, Martin Luther, was a German monk in 1517. Once his ideas caught on, they kinda spread northward into Scandinavia.) In the early 1980s, most of us agreed to get along and merged into one big Lutheran group called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and that's the group that Advent Lutheran Church in Rindge, New Hampshire belongs to. Rumor has it that there are about 70 million Christians who call themselves Lutherans throughout the world today. At Advent Lutheran, we're often confused, locally, with the Apostolic Lutherans around nearby New Ipswich, and the Missouri-Synod Lutherans, who have congregations nearby in Peterborough, Troy and Keene.  To read the background to Advent Lutheran, check out the basic principles of the ELCA, here.   In reality, many of our members do not come from Lutheran backgrounds.  They come to us from all kinds of backgrounds, including no prior church experience at all. See our official "stats" at this official website. Come by some time and see what we're all about.