Easter flowers have been ordered and will be set up in the sanctuary for Easter Sunday services.  Following the 11:00 a.m. service, you may take your flowers home.  If you have forgotten what you ordered, there will be a sheet on the Christy Room door with everyone’s order on it.

Thank you for ordering flowers to decorate our sanctuary on Easter Sunday.

Luther Park:In case you missed the Sunday that Joel was here, there is information in Fellowship Hall about Luther Park Bible Camp.Luther Park is an opportunity for kids grades 1-12. You can also go to their website at www.lutherpark.com.  We hope that you consider for your child, grandchild, niece or nephew the opportunity to spend a week at Luther Park this summer.  It is a week of fun, faith, games, singing, outdoor worship, and relationship building 24/7.  We are hoping to connect families together to help find weeks in common for signing up.  We already have a family registered for Tree Houses the week of June 22.  Please contact Diane LaMere if you to would like to share the week you are thinking of signing up so she can share with others too!  Great opportunity to figure out car pooling! Day Camp (4 yr olds – Grade 6):  A local opportunity for our younger kids this summer is a day camp offered by a collaboration of several South Minneapolis churches, including LOTI.  Several of our LOTI kids attended this camp last year and had a great time!  The day camp will be hosted this year at Bethel Lutheran at 4120 17th Ave South in Minneapolis.  The dates are June 22-26 from 9am – 4pm and is offered to children 4 years old through 6th grade.  The theme this year is Creation.  We will have more details for you in the coming weeks as plans unfold for this camp. April 5 – Easter Sunday – No Sunday School April 12 – Sunday School Resumes

A big thank you to the local Thrivent Action Team for their financial support and help coordinating the 17 volunteers who participated in serving the Pancake Breakfast on Palm Sunday.  We served over 100 people and $585 was received for the camp scholarship fund. Thank you to chefs Don Holzschuh and Jake Kunerth for preparing a delicious breakfast.

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”   Mark 16:8

For many Christians today, the story of Jesus’ resurrection has lost its element of surprise. We know that death does not have the final word on Easter.  We may feel a bit remorseful about Jesus’ death on Good Friday, and we may even feel a tinge of guilt as we meditate on his suffering and death. But we have grown so accustomed to expect that Jesus will rise again, that we overlook the tragic and wonderful sense of surprise. This was not true for the earliest Christians. They knew the taste of death, but they also savored the surprise of the resurrection.

The oldest written texts of the Bible capture this surprise. The earliest manuscripts of St. Mark’s gospel close with the verse, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” St. Mark doesn’t even state that the disciples saw the risen Jesus. The women who went to the tomb early in the morning, simply left filled with terror and amazement. Instead of expectant joy, they were afraid.

Within a generation or two, however, the sense of surprise for the resurrection seems to have disappeared for the Christian church, and so the later editors of the gospel felt it was important to include additional scenes to complete the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. (If you look in your Bible, you will actually note the Biblical scholars comments marking, “The Shorter Ending” and “The Longer Ending.”)

Of course, as an “Easter People” it is difficult to wear blinders and to avoid seeing the resurrection as we read the story of Good Friday and Easter. After all, we do know what happens, and we expect to find the tomb empty.   But I don’t think that being struck “with terror and amazement” is about merely overlooking the resurrection until the right moment. The wonder and surprise of Easter is about experiencing the possibility of a new life and resurrection. Death and loss may have touched your life this past year. All your hopes for the future may have been dashed. You may have buried your own passions in an often visited grave. But Easter is about surprises, and if Christ could rise from the dead just imagine the possibilities he can do in your life. That was the excitement the women felt that first Easter morning, and why they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. They wondered instead whether the surprise could really be true.

My friends, as we celebrate Easter again this Sunday, may you be filled with surprise, wonder and awe at the possibilities Jesus is offering you.

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Pastor Arden Haug

Lake of the Isles Lutheran has been a partner with Our Saviour’s Housing for several decades.  On the first Friday of every month we provide a hot meal for the approximately 40 people who are staying at the shelter.  There are several options for your involvement.  (1) You can be responsible for cooking the meal and serving it at the shelter.  (2) Team up with another family or some friends to make and serve a meal one of the months.  (3) If cooking for a crowd seems intimidating, Cheri Moe will be willing to help prepare the meal at the church.  You can then take it to the shelter to serve.  Or Cheri will go with you to help out.  (4)  Some people don’t have the time to cook the meal, but would be willing to help serve.  We can use you too.  (5) You can donate funds designated for the Our Saviour’s meal.  Recipes for cooking for a crowd are available.  Contact Cheri Moe (952-431-5226 or [email protected]) to volunteer or for more information.  At this time the months we need volunteers are April 3, July 3, August 7, September 4, October 2 and November 6..

If you wish to purchase Easter flowers for display around the altar (which you can then take home with you after Easter services), order blanks are available at the church so please put your order form and money in a pew envelope and drop it in the collection plate. Checks should be made out to LOTI.  You may also call the the church office at 612 377-5095 or send an e-mail to Linda at[email protected].  Our estimated order is due March 10 and final orders due March 24th.

• Easter Lilies (5 or more flowers)         7.75
• Tulips                                                  7.25
• Mums                                                  8.75
• Hydrangea (pink)                               14.00

Summer opportunities!

Luther Park:  In case you missed the Sunday that Joel was here, there is information in Fellowship Hall about Luther Park Bible Camp.Luther Park is an opportunity for kids grades 1-12. You can also go to their website atwww.lutherpark.com.  We hope that you consider for your child, grandchild, niece or nephew the opportunity to spend a week at Luther Park this summer.  It is a week of fun, faith, games, singing, outdoor worship, and relationship building 24/7.  We are hoping to connect families together to help find weeks in common for signing up.  We already have a family registered for Tree Houses the week ofJune 22.  Please contact Diane LaMere if you to would like to share the week you are thinking of signing up so she can share with others too!  Great opportunity to figure out car pooling!

Day Camp (4 yr olds – Grade 6):  A local opportunity for our younger kids this summer is a day camp offered by a collaboration of several South Minneapolis churches, including LOTI.  Several of our LOTI kids attended this camp last year and had a great time!  The day camp will be hosted this year at Bethel Lutheran at 4120 17th Ave South in Minneapolis.  The dates are June 22-26 from 9am – 4pm and is offered to children 4 years old through 6th grade.  The theme this year is Creation.  We will have more details for you in the coming weeks as plans unfold for this camp.

Calendar notes:

March 29:  Palm Sunday – Children will remain in worship and participate in the search for the donkey. Have some pancakes after worship and then head over to the parsonage for the annual egg hunt!

April 5:  Easter Sunday – Children will remain in worship with their families for this special day of worship

• Location:  Feed My Starving Children, Chanhassen.
• Date:  A 2-hour shift on a Saturday between mid-March and mid-May, followed by an optional Social Hour at Jill and Charlie’s home in Minnetonka.
• Details:  If people are interested in volunteering, please e-mail Jill at[email protected] for more information and to let her know your availability.  She will then determine 2 dates that work for the majority of people and we will go from there!

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.       Philippians 4:5

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. When he was still in his twenties, his high-quality woodcuts established his reputation and influence across Europe, and he has since been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of

 the Northern Renaissance. Two of his works can be seen today in the Albertina Museum in Vienna. The first is the woodcut of the Praying Hands of the Apostle, and the second is a water color of the Young Hare.

Of course, both works are worthy Easter images- and I am not referring simply to the hare as the Easter Bunny. Surprisingly, Dürer once used three rabbits in a woodcut of the Holy Family to represent the Holy Trinity. The more important image for the season of Lent, however, is the praying hands. Today Dürer’s woodcut can be seen around the world. It has been recreated in countless forms including plaster sculptures. The original drawing was created in 1508 as a study for an altar piece featuring a variety of apostles and saints gathered around the Virgin Mary, hence the name- “The Study of the Praying Hands of the Apostle.”  The sketch depicted both the hands and the face of an apostle. Art historians believe that the hands may have been Dürer’s own hands. Sadly, the altar painting was lost, burned in a fire in 1729.

In spite of the fire, the simple study of the praying hands which Dürer drew for one single detail, has remained a part of our cultural and spiritual heritage 500 years later. For me personally, that is a wonderful and powerful statement of faith. The face of the apostle has been lost to time, but the faith of the apostle in prayer has survived. Perhaps that is because of our life long journey in prayer. We never feel that we get it quite right, but we realize that it is our most important way of sharing our needs and cares with God. That is the primary purpose of our own Lenten journey at Lake of the Isles.

Through the season of Lent, we are focusing on the discipline of prayer. This is the theme for our Sunday morning worship services as we walk through the Lord’s Prayer, as well as our Wednesday evening Lenten Services using Holden Evening Prayer when we meditate on the words of Martin Luther’s explanation to the Lord’s Prayer. Once again, this year we are enjoying sketches by Neil and Ellen Johnson during worship, and a soup supper beginning at 5:45.

Come and let us enjoy this Lenten journey together.

Peace, Pastor Arden Haug