The season of Lent is a “moveable period” in the church year. It is a preparatory season for the festival of Easter, and since Easter is determined the lunar calendar and not a calendar date, the entire Lent and Easter season shifts from one year to another. This year the first day of Lent known as Ash Wednesday begins on Wednesday, March 5th. Historically, churches have chosen to mark the 40 days and Sundays of Lent as a penitential period focusing on the agony of Jesus’ death on the cross. Originally, the period of Lent was intended was to be a period of growth. Men and women dedicated a tenth of the year to learning and growing in faith. The English word “Lent” actually comes from the old English phrase to “lengthen.” This implies both the light and days in spring growing greater, but also that Christians grow greater in faith.
At Lake of the Isles, we will explore this growth in faith, with an intentional time of fellowship and worship in Lent. Each Wednesday evening, there will be an opportunity to gather together with friends and eat a simple meal of soup and bread. This will be followed by a worship service in the sanctuary. Ash Wednesday service on March 5th will follow the traditional service of reflection, confession and the imposition of ashes. The remaining five Wednesday evening will be celebrated with Marty Haugen’s Holden Evening Prayer service and will include an original sketches written by Neil and Ellen Johnson. These will be performed and directed by the members of the congregation. With such titles, “A Desperate Housewife” and “The First Ever Lutefisk Dinner,” these sketches are intended to help you think about the Christian faith in new ways.
Our Holy Week service for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday will be celebrated together with St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Maundy Thursday will be held at St. Paul’s and Good Friday will be held at Lake of the Isles.
This Lent, let us grow in faith together at Lake of the Isles.
If you wish to purchase Easter flowers for display around the altar (which you can then take home with you after Easter Services), order forms will be in your bulletins on Sunday or in Fellowship Hall. Please enclose your money with your form and either drop it in the offering plate in a pew envelope or leave it in the church office. Our estimated order is due March 25th and final orders will go in April 8th. In order to be guaranteed you will get the plant you want, please have your order in by March 25th.
The Minnesota FoodShare March Campaign goal is a constant: To raise enough money and food to provide more than half the food distributed annually by 300 food shelves statewide.
For 32 years, the March Campaign goal has been ambitious. This year is no different and because this effort requires the help of so many, including congregations like ours, the focus is on a new event for congregations called “Pack the Pews” the weekend of March 21, 22 and 23. We are encouraging members of LOTI to bring a grocery bag of healthy non-perishables or a monetary donation to worship services to be donated to Community Emergency Services.
Last year, the Minnesota FoodShare March Campaign raised more than $8.3 million and almost 4 million pounds of food. That is the equivalent of a year’s worth of meals for more than 7,700 families of four.
The weather outside might still be winter, but we are going to think about summer on Sunday, March 9! Come in your summer gear (underneath your winter gear) and let’s get excited for hot summer days filled with God’s love at Lake of the Isles. We are excited to share with you some new summer offerings for kids at Lake of the Isles on this day.
We joyfully welcome Joel Legred from Luther Park Bible Camp in Danbury WI to worship and Sunday School on March 9. Joel will share with kids and families the many opportunities this summer at Luther Park.
This month the kids will be working hard on learning the song they will sing on Palm Sunday (see calendar note below). We are excited to have them share in the gift of song with our wonderful choir on this special day.
We look forward to seeing you in Sunday School!
Calendar notes for Sunday School families:
March 9 – Summer program registration kick-off
March 31 – No Sunday School. (Spring Break) Families will be in worship together
April 13 – Palm Sunday and Pancake Breakfast. Children sing in worship (no Sunday School)
April 20 – Easter Sunday. (No Sunday School)
Diane LaMere
Another Sparkhouse Animation, background filmed at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church.
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. Luke 2:22
Dear Friends and Members of Lake of the Isles, it is always a discussion in our house when the Christmas decorations must be put away. The Christmas tree is easy. It must be standing through the 12 days of Christmas to the day of Epiphany on January 6th. Some years that’s a little risky when the needles begin to rain down when you walk by. In Scandinavia, Christmas trees are allowed to stand until January 13th, a day that is called the 20th Day of Knut. As the tree is carted away the last cookies and sweets are eaten. The Swedes even have a name for this ritual, “Julgransplundring,” which roughly translates as “the Christmas tree plundering.”
There is one other traditional date for marking the end of the Christmas season and that is Candlemas, February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. According to St. Luke’s gospel, the infant Jesus was brought by Mary and Joseph to the Temple in Jerusalem. According to the law of Moses, this was the fortieth day since Jesus’ birth. . It was during this visit that the old prophet Simeon, who had been assured that he was to see the Messiah before his death, saw the couple and their infant son Jesus walking across the Temple courtyard. According to St. Luke gospel, Simeon took the child in his arms and announced, “Now, oh God, I can leave this world in peace- for I have seen my salvation.” He then spoke the prophecy that Jesus would be the light for all the world.
Martin Luther himself felt that the story of Candlemas captured the fullness of God’s love and grace. In a sermon for Candlemas he wrote Simeon’s prophetic word, “God has ‘prepared salvation,’ which fact clearly indicates that He is merciful and does not desire our death; yea, He has prepared this salvation for “all the people,” that everyone might enjoy his blessing.”
Candlemas is a natural day to put away the last Christmas decorations. And so our worship service on Candlemas will feature candlelight, the Sunday School children singing, and a hint of a Christmas carol or two. But there will also be a clear sense that we are moving away from the nativity toward the cross of Calvary. It is there, like Simeon, that we are given the assurance that we need not fear death. It is there that we will see our salvation.
The stars will keep guiding through this Epiphany season to remind us that the good news of salvation is for all the world to see.
Peace, Pastor Arden Haug
On Sunday, January 12th, The Festival of the Baptism of Our Lord, our new organist Kenneth Vigne will lead the congregation in song. Kenneth is a 2004 graduate of Como Park High School, a 2008 St. Olaf College graduate in church music (where he met his wife Emily) and a 2010 Master of Music Graduate in organ performance from the University of Oklahoma School of Music. For the past three years, Kenneth has been the organist at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Roseville. In the weeks and months ahead he will take on the role as our Director of Music. In addition to his work in music, Kenneth, a Geek Squad veteran, works full-time in IT at General Mills. Join us on January 12th in welcoming Kenneth Vigne and his family.
When Janna and I were serving as missionaries in the newly independent nation of Latvia following the break-up of the Soviet Union, we were quite surprised to discover the difference and the confusion in New Year’s Eve traditions. In the textbooks of the Soviet Union, students had read about the New Year’s Eve traditions celebrated around the world. Regardless of their geographic differences, according to the textbooks, people sang “New Year’s songs,” and they decorated their “New Year’s trees.” They even gave one another “New Year’s presents.” In the Soviet textbooks, the festival of Christmas was not even mentioned except for an a footnote where it stated the British had a rich tradition of music called “carols.” These songs were reportedly sung a few days earlier than December 31st for a lesser known English festival called Christmas.Over the course of the past 20 years, many of the “former” Christmas traditions have returned to their proper place on December 24th, but there are still some unique New Year’s Eve traditions for December 31st. In Latvia you must still eat a bowl of gray peas with bacon bits before the stroke of midnight, otherwise, the remaining peas will foreshadow your tears in the new year. In Germany and Austria, families melt tin or lead and pour the molten mass into cool water. They then spend the rest of the evening interpreting the meaning of the new forms. In other parts of the world, churches gather in prayer in the hours before midnight. Perhaps the most common traditions are the ringing of church bells and the explosions of fireworks at midnight, and of course, the obligatory sipping of champagne. It seems, all people want a little preview of what the new year will bring.
In Slovakia, we experienced a mixture of the sacred and secular. As the church bells began to peel, it seemed as if the bells were singing an old Slovak hymn, called Rok Novy- or New Year. The text of the song was translated by the late Slovak-American hymn writer Jaroslava Vajda into the hymn “Greet Now the Swiftly Changing Year.”
This Jesus came to end sin’s war; This name of names for us he bore.
Rejoice! Rejoice! With thanks embrace Another year of grace.
His love abundant far exceeds The volume of a whole world’s needs.
Rejoice! Rejoice! With thanks embrace Another year of grace.
I meditate upon that simple text every New Year’s Eve. In spite of the gray peas, the molten tin, and the bubbles in the champagne, we really don’t know what the new year will bring. But we do have the assurance that “God’s love abundant far exceeds The volume of a whole world’s needs.” For me, that is good news. I can look at the new year ahead and rejoice. Indeed, God has given another year of grace.
Happy New Year! Pastor Arden Haug