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ZION NEWSLETTER

Volume 24, Number 3
The Easter issue
April/May 2009

Christ ist erstanden
von der Marter alle;
des soll'n alle froh sein;
Christus will unser Trost sein.
Kyrieleis!

Christ is arisen
From the grave's dark prison!
So let us all be joyful;
He is our Savior faithful.
Alleluia!

German Chorale, 12th century, adapted Wittenberg 1529, translation: C J Terry

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Pastor Roggelin's Archive:
Past Messages From Zion

Please note changes to Zion’s Holy Week/Easter Schedule 2009 on the calendar.

Dear members and friends of Zion:    Feiern Sie mit uns – Come celebrate with us!
We are soon to celebrate the high point of the entire church year! Easter is embedded in a sacred sequence of days and celebrations, Holy Week and the Triduum (Latin for “three days”), and it is lasting a full joyful season of 50 days/8 Sundays until Pentecost/ Pfingsten.
We hope you will again appreciate our special service arrangements, designed to follow the stages of moving from Palm Sunday to Easter and into Eastertide, accentuating special gifts of our two languages and traditions:

  • Palm Sunday:  we will celebrate a German service with an emphasis on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, including a Palm Procession and Abendmahl/Holy Communion, while the English service will have a double focus on “Palm and Passion”, with a reading of the Passion (this year from St. Mark’s gospel) and a plain setting of Holy Communion.
  • Monday in Holy Week (April 6): We will have a German service in the Chapel of OAK CREST VILLAGE with a simple celebration of Abendmahl/Holy Communion at 11 am. All are welcome to join!
  • Maundy Thursday/Gründonnerstag: an evening Eucharist, in English, commemorating our Lord’s Last Supper, with choral music gems like Mozart’s Ave verum and Duruflé’s Ubi caritas.
    The color of the day is white, and the Great Doxology, Glory to God in the highest, is sung.
    However, at the end of the service the Altar will be stripped, preparing us for Good Friday.
  • Good Friday/Karfreitag: a German service at the traditional hour of Christ’s death: 3 pm,
    with the reading of the passion according to St. John, German chorale music centered on the Passion Chorale “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”, and a plain setting of Abendmahl/Holy Communion.
  • For the Great Vigil of Easter, the “night of nights”, we are joining our sister congregations Christ Inner Harbor and St. Mark’s at St. Mark’s (1900 St. Paul Street). The service starts on Holy Saturday at 7:30 pm.
  • Easter Sunday/Ostersonntag at Zion will be celebrated with festive services in both languages with choir and brass accentuating the Easter joy. PLEASE NOTE THE TIMECHANGE: to enable more fellowship and less rush at the Easter breakfast, the German service will start (that Sunday only!) at 9:00 am and the English service at 11:30 am. In between we will proclaim the resurrection over the Pastors’ graves in the garden with brass and daffodils, enjoy the Easter breakfast together, and the kids will have their Easter egg hunt in Zion’s garden.
  • Special services in Eastertide include the annual Kirchgang of the Germania and Arminius Lodges on Easter 2 (April 19), Church Music Sunday on Mothers’ Day  (Easter 5, May 10), and eventually the Festive Bilingual service with confirmation on Pfingsten/Pentecost (May 27).
  • Other festivities during this time include the MAIFEST on May 2, celebrating 80 years of German language school at Zion and the SPRING FEST on May 7.

See you at your Zionskirche! Bring a loved one and/or a friend to one of our special services          
Have a blessed Holy Week, Happy Easter and a joyful Eastertide!
Eine gesegnete Karwoche, ein frohes Osterfest und eine fröhliche Osterzeit wünscht Ihnen
Pastor Dr Holger Roggelin


EASTER MESSAGE 2009 FROM THE PRESIDING BISHOP
"Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified ... has been raised" (Mark 16:6). 
When Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome came to the tomb, their hopes and fears intersected. They wondered aloud about the impossibly large and heavy stone that presented an obstacle to their immediate plans. Worse, what they thought lay behind the stone was unspeakably devastating. Jesus, who embodied the hope of God's promise in a fully human life, was not simply dead, but crucified -- executed in the most extreme humiliation, a savage mockery of the hope that had lived with him.
But the stone was gone, the grave empty. Where they had expected to hear the silence of death's mockery, they were met by an astonishing message that the crucified one was raised from the dead, that their hope was victorious over humiliation, and that Jesus lives and is leading the way into an unexpected, surprising future with God.
Jesus lives and resurrection hope beckons. Jesus' resurrection on the third day signals that God is not finished until the life of Jesus renews the whole creation. Sinners once haunted by the threats of judgment will live forgiven, restored, renewed and freed. All lives broken by sin's injustices and haunted by death's terrors will be transformed by joy and transfigured into the new creation in Christ.
You and I are witnesses of this new creation. You have been baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection and have heard his promise. Your lives are hidden in his and he feeds you with a foretaste of the eternal feast of joy. He will meet you in your hope. He claims your daily work and makes it into a holy calling. He lives in you and sends you into the world as an ambassador of reconciliation, a testimony of God's incomparable love. Jesus lives! Your life in him is resurrection witness.
"This is our God ... let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation!" (Isaiah 25:9).
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America For more messages from and more information on Bishop Hanson and his ministry within the ELCA,
go to
http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Presiding-Bishop/ PASTOR HOLGER ROGGELIN

Pastor Roggelin's Archive of Past Messages From Zion

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