Happenings

Sermons by Pastor Walter Snyder plus announcements, articles, videos, and anything else that doesn’t fit Ask the Pastor or the Luther Library.





02 April 2015

Sermon: Holy Thursday B

Maundy Thursday 2 April AD 2015
Lent – Easter Series on Christ and Creation

Title: In the (New) Beginning: The Image of God (MP3 Audio)

Creation: Day Six Summary: God waited until the end of Creation’s days to make Man as the highest and best expression of His creative genius. Unfortunately, His creatures waited hardly any time at all to rebel against Him in whose image they were made.

Since we could not undo the horrible curse upon sin, God made Himself in our image, taking on human flesh in the person of His sinless Son. He righted Adam’s wrong and paid for the sins of our first parents and all their heirs by dying on our behalf.

He who is the creating Word of God spoke the recreating words of forgiveness, announcing from the cross, “It is finished.” He who shared our lifeblood gave His life-giving blood to us who were dead in our trespasses.

God in Christ took on the image of Man and by His suffering and death now restores to Man the image of God. As Paul tells us, ‘“The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45)”

Hymn: During Lenten midweek services, through Holy Week, the Vigil, and Easter morning, we will be singing With God in the Beginning as Office Hymn or Hymn of the Day. Each time we will sing two stanzas focusing on the Christology of that day’s sermon text from Genesis. The tune I chose is Auf, auf, mein Herz, known among many English-speaking Christians as the Easter hymn Awake, My Heart, with Gladness.

   Adam, in God’s own image,
   Was formed of earthen clay.
   Satan him soon did damage,
   Defeat, destroy, dismay.
   With Eve, his wife, he fell
   Straight into sin, death, hell.
   Yet God, through Eve’s own Seed,
   Avowed He’d meet their need.

   Christ came — the Second Adam —
   Belovèd, perfect One.
   Image of God from heaven
   And mankind’s greatest Son:
   Likeness divine restored
   To us forevermore.
   As we in Him believe,
   God’s image now receive.

      ©2003, 2015 Walter P. Snyder

Text: And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds — livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:24-31

Scripture quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Audio: Click to hear the MP3 of In the (New) Beginning: The Image of God.

NB: For some reason, a few people have had problems trying to play the inline audio if Windows Media is their default MP3 player. If this occurs, you can either change to QuickTime or another default browser player, copy and paste the link directly into a selected player, or download it to your computer, where it seems to work regardless of which player. Several folks have suggested VLC Player from VideoLAN.

Other Readings: Psalm 116:12-19; Exodus 24:3-11; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; Mark 14:12-26

Illustration: The Sixth Day of Creation from Die Bibel in Bildern by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld at Wikimedia Commons.

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1 Comments:

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July 27, 2023 at 6:51 AM  

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