This service is not the same service as our Sunday morning services, so please take this midweek opportunity to meditate on God’s Word.

VOTERS MEETING
Tuesday August 2nd at 6:00pm there will be a special Voters Meeting to discuss calling or not calling another pastor to fill Pastor Hartwig’s position. All eligible voters are urged to attend. There will be no meal before the meeting.

FROM PASTOR HARTWIG & FAMILY
Pastor and Katie would like to than everyone for the warm wishes, prayers and gifts as leave for their new call in Mankato. We all wish Pastor Hartwig and family the Lord’s richest blessings and safe travel to their new home. Once Pastor and Katie get settled I will print their new address and phone number for everyone.

THANK YOU!
Dee Eddington would like to thank everyone for their prayers and sympathy during theses last few weeks; it has been a great comfort to her. She would also like to thank everyone who helped to make the service and the luncheon a thoughtful and memorable event. Thank you and God Bless!

MONDAY EVENING CHAPEL SERVICES
Mondays at 6:30pm we will be offering a week day evening service for anyone who may have missed church on Sunday. The service will be held at the Chapel on the north side.

We hope you will take the opportunity to visit us and learn about all that Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Chapel, and School have to offer you and your family.

We are a community of believers who stand on God’s unchanging Word.

At the very center of everything we do is truth that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them (2 Cor 5:19).

In Christ,

Pastor Saari

Pastor Hartwig

The famous hymn poses the question, “Were you there?”  Were you there at the death of our Savior?  Were you there at the resurrection of our Savior?  Did you look into the empty tomb and see the grave clothes lying there?  The answer, of course, is no.  We only view these events through the eyes of faith.  However, does that mean the certainty of Jesus’ resurrection is dependent on blind faith alone?  Here are some historic facts about the resurrection that show we can know empirically that Jesus did rise from the dead.

• The disciples never changed their story:  The disciples stuck to their story  even when they were threatened with physical punishment.  They would not recant their claim of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  In fact, Peter and John before the rulers said, “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  (Acts 4:20)
• The disciples were willing to die because of Jesus’ resurrection:  Of the Apostles’, apart from Judas, 10 of the 11 were martyred.  The Apostle Paul, who also saw the resurrected Lord, was also willing to die in martyrdom.  If the disciples had been telling a lie, wouldn’t it be likely that at least one of them would crack and spill the beans?  But instead they gave up their lives because of what they had seen and heard.
• Over 500 hundred men saw that risen Lord at one time:  (1 Corinthians 15:6)  In Hebrew law, everything had to be established by two or three witnesses.  How much credibility does an event with 500 witnesses have?
• Where is the body?  Supposedly, the disciples, many of them simple fisherman, overpowered the elite Roman soldiers and hid the body.  The religious rulers of the time knew that Jesus had said he would rise from the dead – that is why they posted the guards at the tomb.  If they could prove that he lied in just one teaching, they could label him a false prophet.  If they really believed that he didn’t rise, don’t you think that they would have torn Jerusalem and the surrounding area apart looking for the body.  Instead, they simply paid off the Roman soldiers.  They knew that searching for a body would be useless because they knew the guards were not lying.  The tomb was empty.  Christ is risen!

Our faith in the resurrection is not merely based on blind faith.  We have the account of eyewitnesses to His glory.  Listen to the way John introduces his first epistle.  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched– this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1)

Were we there? No, we weren’t but our joy is no less and our faith no weaker.  As Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)  Your faith in Jesus’ resurrection is not base God’s Word alone, though that would be enough, but also on the historical facts.  Stop doubting and believe.  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Maybe you’ve seen those freaky horror movies with little demon-dolls. They’re evil and foreboding. No matter what their victims do, they keep reappearing. Finally, the movie ends; it’s over. Or is it? There’s always the sequel.

That’s cinema. But real life brings demons of terror that are not products of imagination. This real horror doesn’t disappear with the words, “The end.” In fact, those only add another facet of horror – life’s termination. Death!

Maybe people watch movies to escape from fear. Perhaps themes of blood and terror appeal because they are left behind when we exit the theater. But we can’t avoid death. It’ll creep up on all of us no matter the diets or secrets to longevity we follow. It is only delayed, inevitable. The Grim Reaper will eventually cut us down. It sends shivers up and down the spine!

Death would never be haunting us if not for another culprit: sin. Everyone has sinned, done evil, thought the lurid, hateful, greedy thought, and… the list of sins is endless, as is the punishment from Holy God that we deserve! Just when we think we’ve overcome one sin, there’s a sequel. And don’t forget how we can’t forget: guilt!

Jesus Christ, true God, came to our cemetery-pocked world for us. He never gave in to temptation. Sinless, He should not have died, but He did, on the cross. Those spotless 33 years were lived for us; six hours of hellish death were died for us. But that was not “The End.”

Jesus got up, alive, three days later. What good news for us who are so creeped out by sin, guilt, and death! With Jesus’ holiness credited to us and with His death paying our sentence in full, we’re forgiven! The Bible tells us why: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins,” 1 Corinthians 15:17. Jesus’ resurrection declares that we are NOT still in our sins. Why? Because if there is no need for a grave, that means there is no death anymore. And if there is no death anymore, that means there is no sin (the cause of death) anymore. So Jesus rescued us from the victimizing, terrorizing power of our sin, guilt, and mortality! Forgiveness ends the fear. This we believe. God’s Word declares it. We are not STILL in our sins. Jesus is risen! We are not STILL mortified by death and its source, sin. Jesus is risen! Still the guilt-sequels? No, Jesus is risen! Still comforted and secure in forgiveness and certain of eternal life in heaven? Yes, Jesus is risen!

(Blog courtesy of the ELS Board for Evangelism – www.learnaboutjesus.com