AUDIO: Readings & Sermon for Wednesday, March 20, 2024

View the Bulletin for Wednesday, March 20, 2024
2:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
7:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
All are welcome, bring a friend, neighbor or relative

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First Reading -- Jeremiah 9:12-16
Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? And the Lord says: “Because they have forsaken My law that I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.” 

Second Reading -- 2 Timothy 3:1–9 
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. 

Third Reading -- Matthew 26:1–5 
When Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said to His disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” 

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill Him. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” 

Bulletin: Thursday March 28, 2024 – Maundy Thursday

View the Bulletin for Thursday, March 28, 2024
2:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
7:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
All are welcome, bring a friend, neighbor or relative

Let Us Love One Another, as Christ Jesus Has Loved Us and Loves Us to the End
“The LORD’s Passover” (Ex. 12:11) and “the blood of the covenant” at Mount Sinai (Ex. 24:8) foreshow the Lord’s Supper. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, now covers us, and we keep His Supper “as a feast to the LORD” (Ex. 12:14). In Him, we see “the God of Israel” (Ex. 24:10), and yet He does not lay His hand on us to punish us, but from His hand we eat and drink in peace. As our High Priest, He “entered once for all into the holy places … by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). He shed His own blood in order to “purify our conscience” and bring us before His God and Father “without blemish” (Heb. 9:14). The holy apostles received this New Testament in His blood from the Lord Jesus “on the night when he was betrayed,” and they delivered the same to His Church, which we also now receive in the name and remembrance of Christ (1 Cor. 11:23–26; Matt. 26:26–28). He has “loved his own who were in the world,” and He loves us “to the end” (John 13:1); therefore, let us also “love one another” (John 13:34).

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Kids in the Divine Service

Children’s activity pages are available in the baskets at both church entrances. They reinforce the concepts and themes for that week’s worship service in a kid-friendly format. Also, be sure to guide your child through the “Kids in the Divine Service” page found on the last page of each bulletin (also reproduced here).

Kids in the Divine Service
Why do we have a week called “Holy Week?”
Why would we refer to a week as being holy? The word “holy” means that it is from God. That’s why we call the Bible “holy.” It isn’t just any book. It is God’s living Word given to us for our salvation! The same goes for Holy Week. This is “God’s Week.” This is the week in the Church Year when Jesus actually paid for our sins and won our salvation!

Which days are in Holy Week?
There are particular days during Holy Week that are extra special. During Holy Week we celebrate Palm Sunday, when Jesus went to Jerusalem and people celebrated His arrival; Maundy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper; Good Friday, when Jesus died on the cross; and Holy Saturday, when we await His resurrection on Easter Sunday!

Parents
During worship, help your children to look for other things in the church that are considered holy (i.e. God’s Word, the Sacraments, etc._ Ask them: “How does God use these things to give us His forgiveness?”

Join us for Easter Breakfast!

Join us for the … ZION EASTER BREAKFAST!

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024
Join us in the Fellowship Hall in between Services

Where do you fit? Volunteers are needed:
Make egg casseroles (recipe & pan provided), make fruit salad (bowl provided), help set up, help clean up, help serve.

Sign up in the Church Narthex or email events@zlcb.org

VIDEO: Life Together Digest with Pres. Harrison

WATCH VIDEO

In this Life Together Digest, the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), encourages the church to repentance as Lent begins, and to look with joy and confidence for Easter.

Discussing the name "Concordia" ("hearts together") that so many of our LCMS institutions bear, he walks through the preface to the Book of Concord, with its "teachings that show us that the Gospel is for troubled consciences."

"Be consoled, my friends. Easter is coming. The precious Savior gave His blood ... for all of you that you need not be troubled in your conscience. Christ is for you." View this month’s Life Together Digest at https://mailchi.mp/lcms/life-together...

VIDEO: Sunday March 17, 2024 - Complete Service

View the bulletin for Sunday, March 17, 2024
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Old Testament Reading -- Jeremiah 31:31–34 
Epistle Reading -- Hebrews 5:1–10 
The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the tenth chapter

AUDIO: Announcements, Readings, Sermon & Bell Choir for Sunday March 17, 2024

View the bulletin for Sunday, March 17, 2024
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Old Testament Reading -- Jeremiah 31:31–34 
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 

Epistle Reading -- Hebrews 5:1–10 
Every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. 

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, 

“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”; 
as he says also in another place, 
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.” 

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. 

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the tenth chapter
And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” 

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”