Saint Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church
2525 E. 11th Street Indianapolis, IN
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Holy Saturday

4/4/2015

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Various Texts
In the Name  of Jesus.  Amen.

Rejoice, dear Christians!  For this is the night when Christ, your Life, arose from the dead!

He who descended from above, has ascended from the grave.  He has fulfilled all things for you.  Indeed He fills all things.  And He comes to you on this Emmaus way, bringing comfort and joy to your hearts by opening the Scriptures to you.  

Give ear, then, to the story of salvation unfold before you in the readings:

Christ is the Eternal Logos.  The Word.  By whom and through whom all things were made.  Without Him was not anything made that was made.  He is Life.  He is the very Image and Likeness of the Father.  The Second Adam who restores fallen creation and welcomes you to Paradise to partake once more of the Tree of Life, even His Cross.  

Christ is the Ark that safely ferries you through the flood of Holy Baptism.  His riven side has been opened to you and from it life is poured.  By water, blood, and Spirit you are brought into His very Body, safe and secure in Him.  He is the Sign of the eternal covenant between you and the Father.  

Christ is the Prophet like Moses.  He has delivered you from bondage to sin and the tyranny of the devil, your wicked pharaoh.  Not by the blood of a lamb, but by His own precious Blood.  He is the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  You eat His flesh, the flesh of the Lamb of God.  His Blood stains the wood of the Cross and you enter through it to the Promised Land.  He is your Pillar of Cloud and the Angel of the Lord, and He has gone between you and your enemies.  He has parted the waters of Holy Baptism and leads you through to safety, and all Pharaoh’s chariots are rusting at the bottom of the font.  

Christ is the Word made flesh, Job’s Redeemer, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  He submitted Himself to the Father’s will, was His obedient Servant, and suffered the assaults of the devil.  Yet His flesh did not see decay!  He is risen!  For He is the eternal Rock who has stood upon the earth and shall come again to judge the living and the dead! 

Christ is the Sign of Jonah, having spent three days in the belly of the earth, and yet restored!  He  is the Word of the Lord come to Nineveh through the preaching of Jonah; He is the Word come to you this most holy night.  By Him hearts are turned in repentance.  By His sacrifice the Father has relented of the disaster He ought to have visited upon you!  

Christ was with the three men in the furnace.  He is the Servant of the Most High God; indeed He is God in the flesh!  And He suffered the furnace of the Father’s wrath for you; that you might pass through the fiery trials unscathed.  To Him alone you yield up your body in service and worship, for He yielded up His for you upon the Cross.  

And so I say again, Rejoice, for God has remembered you sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, into whom He breathed the breath of life in the beginning.

Rejoice, you sons and daughters of Noah, for He who once destroyed the world in the waters of the flood, yet saved eight souls alive in the ark, has brought you into His holy ark of the Church, the very Body of Christ.  The flood was a type.  God has given the antitype – Baptism now saves you!

Rejoice, you spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for as God brought His Israel through the waters of the Red Sea and gave them salvation, so now in this blessed Sacrament the waters again have been parted, and He has given salvation to you.  

Rejoice, you who were once slaves, held captive by sin and death, for your ransom God gave His Son!

Rejoice you weak hearted and downcast, for Job’s Redeemer has taken up your flesh and blood and by His innocent suffering and death has reconciled you to the Father!  

Rejoice, with the inhabitants of Nineveh, for God has relented of His disaster by pouring it out upon His Son, who after three days in grave has returned to give life and light!  

Rejoice, O you condemned to death, for the Son of Man who rescued three young men from the fiery furnace will rescue you from your own fiery trials.

Rejoice, you who squandered your lives, for tonight the Lord invites you to come to His Table, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  

Rejoice, O you who have been baptized, for God has given you a new heart and new spirit!

Rejoice, you who have been raised with Christ, and seek those things which are above.  For tonight you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

O you sinners, rejoice and be glad, for this is the night when our Passover was accomplished, and the Blood of the true Passover Lamb is painted on the doorpost of your body and soul.  Let Faith point to it and death pass over!.  

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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    Pr. Seth A Mierow

    Lutheran. Confessional. Liturgical. Sacramental. By Grace.  Kyrie Eleison!

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                                                2525 E. 11th St. Indianapolis, IN 
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