Good Evening First Presbyterian,

I hope you had a joyful Easter Sunday!

It was certainly a joy for me and Pastor Neff to see so many of you at our services on Sunday morning and hear from all of you who were worshipping from afar (more than 150 households!).

This coming Sunday, April 24th, promises to be an exciting and joy-filled worship experience as well! Over the last month and a half, several of our youth in grades 6-12 have met during their Sunday School time, and during Youth Group meetings, to prepare to lead both our morning worship services. They chose the theme and scripture together, and Piper Wilson (an FPC senior) will be providing the sermon.

Using scripture selections from Daniel and the gospels of Luke and Matthew, they will explore the theme of “Forgiving and Giving” throughout the service. Their gospel selections come from the section of the gospel of Luke that is referred to as the “Sermon on the Plain” and from the longer “Sermon on the Mount” in the gospel of Matthew.

As we prepare to worship together on Sunday morning, I encourage to reflect on this selection from Luke 6:37-38a ~ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you…

Martin Luther preached a sermon on this scripture titled, Be Merciful as Your Heavenly Father is Merciful* sometime around the year 1523. He closes this sermon on Luke 6:37-42 with the following, that I think connects this scripture and its message to the lessons of Holy Week, and in particular what we have just experienced in observing Maundy Thursday:

And just in this way does the world take knowledge of Christians, how they live among themselves and show one another such acts of mercy. This the Lord Christ also taught his disciples in the Lord's Supper when in John 13:34-35 he said: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Such is the explanation of this Gospel; let us pray to God for his grace.

This evening I am giving thanks to God for all the ways that Jesus explained, taught, repeated, and reminded the disciples and those present for his sermons that loving one another and God is at the heart of our purpose as Christians.

Beloved, may you love one another as Christ has loved you,

Erin

*A Sermon by Martin Luther; taken from his Church Postil, and first published in pamphlet form in 1523