All Are Welcome!WORSHIP
Parking Lot Service Our next outdoor services will on the following Sundays, weather permitting September 27 8:30 am -Bethel Lutheran Church 10:30 am - Immanuel Lutheran Church. October 11 8:30 am -Bethel Lutheran Church 10:30 am - Immanuel Lutheran Church. October 25 8:30 am -Bethel Lutheran Church 10:30 am - Immanuel Lutheran Church. There will be a fuller liturgy. However, we will not sing. Our plans will be to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Hope to see you there. Again, although inconvenient, we will wear masks and practice social distancing. This service is open to members of both congregations. Take care and be safe! CONTACT US:Office: 320-277-3939
P.O. Box 35, 36055 213th Street Hillman, MN 56338 Pastor Stephen Olson (218) 290-6244 EMAIL : immanuel@brainerd.net How To Find Us:Immanuel Lutheran Church of Hillman is located at the intersection of County Hwy 27 and County Hwy 47. It is one mile west of County 8.
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BAPTISM: THE GIFT OF HOPE Paul writes to the Roman congregation: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” [Romans 6.4-6 NRSV] During my first two years in seminary, we spoke often of baptism. We studied its Scriptural foundations in the New Testament, its practice in the early church, its role in Luther’s theology, and its implications for the believer. The courses were valuable to me from an academic standpoint. When finished, I could say with assurance that I ‘knew all about baptism.’ Yet it was not until my internship year that the Holy Spirit started to unwrap this precious gift of God for me. My internship site was unique. The Balfour-Butte Lutheran Parish of Butte, North Dakota was very small (approximately forty active members) and could not afford to call a full-time pastor to serve both churches. So instead, they contracted with Luther-Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul to send them a new intern pastor each year. The intern was to preach every Sunday, administer the Sacraments monthly, visit the sick, and meet weekly with a supervising pastor who lived twenty-eight miles away. It was my good fortune to be assigned to the Balfour-Butte Parish from September 1979 to August 1980. I was fortunate because it was there that I encountered my baptism for what it was: a gift of hope from God. Four months had passed and I was beginning to think that I might get through the year without any funerals. But early one evening in December, the call came. The president of the Balfour congregation called to tell me that Judy had died and that I should go over and see her husband, Sam. [Names have been changed for the purposes of confidentiality.] All I can remember about that sixteen-mile drive was that it was bitterly cold outside and that the newly fallen snow was heavy on the ground. Only the yard lights in the country pierced the darkness. Judy and Sam lived in a small grove just outside of Balfour. The old house stood amidst the oak and maple trees that had long-since lost their leaves. The hedge that surrounded the house was brown. It felt as it death was all around me. They had been married for over 65 years. Sam was in a wheelchair and had difficulty breathing. And now, with Judy’s death, he would certainly have to go a nursing home. There was no one else left in their family to care for him. The two hours I spent with Sam were the longest two hours of my life. On that cold December night, I discovered that I had no answers. Judy’s death and Sam’s hopelessness took my well-ordered theology and knocked it into a cocked hat. After listening to Sam tell me about Judy and their life together, we both wept for all that had been lost. As I prepared for my first funeral, I found the above words from St.Paul’s Letter to the Romans at the beginning of the funeral liturgy . . . Words that brought a glimmer of hope to me . . . Words that pointed to the heart of our Christian faith. When all is lost, when there is no else to turn to, we have the promise of God that was made at the time of our baptism. In baptism, we are linked irrevocably to Jesus. As Jesus died, so shall we; but as he was resurrected, so shall we be also. Our hope in the face of the ever-present death that surrounds us is the resurrection of Jesus . . . a resurrection that is ours in faith through baptism. The promise of baptism for Judy, Sam, and for all believers, is that God has graciously made a covenant with us, sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s Beloved. This promise guarantees that we are God’s children forever, As a parent who loves his/her children, so God also loves us. As Paul reminds the Roman congregation, ‘I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor, rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ [8.38 NRSV] Thanks be to God! In Christ ☩, Pastor Steve
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