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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2ND —
Adair U.M.W. at 9 A.M. in Adair U.M.C.
• Lenten Services - St. John's Catholic
Church at 7 P.M.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5TH —
• Esther Circle Excursion (A Day Out)
• MOTHER-DAUGHTER BANQUET IN
CASEY U.M.C. AT 6:30 P.M.
SUNDAY, APRIL 6TH —
5TH SUNDAY IN LENT
— COLOR - PURPLE —
HOLY COMMUNION TODAY
AFTER WORSHIP SERVICES.
Adam Hamilton’s study, THE WAY:
WALKING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS
SCRIPTURE READINGS —
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EZEKIEL 37:1–14
THE MESSAGE (MSG)
The valley of the dry bones —
and what God can do with even this!
BREATH OF LIFE
1-2 God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me
up and set me down in the middle of an
open plain strewn with bones. He led me
around and among them—a lot of bones!
There were bones all over the plain—dry
bones, bleached by the sun.
3 He said to me, "Son of man, can these
bones live?"
4 He said to me, "Prophesy over these
bones: 'Dry bones, listen to the Message
of God!'"
5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones,
"Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life
to you and you'll come to life. I'll attach
sinews to you, put meat on your bones,
cover you with skin, and breathe life into
you. You'll come alive and you'll realize
that I am God!"
7-8 I prophesied just as I'd been
commanded. As I prophesied, there was a
sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved
and came together, bone to bone. I kept
watching. Sinews formed, then muscles
on the bones, then skin stretched over
them. But they had no breath in them.
9 He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath.
Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, 'God,
the Master, says, Come from the four winds.
Come, breath. Breathe on these slain
bodies. Breathe life!'"
10 So I prophesied, just as he commanded
me. The breath entered them and they
came alive! They stood up on their feet, a
huge army.
11 Then God said to me, "Son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel.
Listen to what they're saying: 'Our bones
are dried up, our hope is gone, there's
nothing left of us.'
12-14 "Therefore, prophesy. Tell them,
'God, the Master, says: I'll dig up your
graves and bring you out alive—O my
people! Then I'll take you straight to the
land of Israel. When I dig up graves and
bring you out as my people, you'll realize
that I am God. I'll breathe my life into you
and you'll live. Then I'll lead you straight
back to your land and you'll realize that I
am God. I've said it and I'll do it.
God's Decree.'"
PSALM 130 (UMH 848)
THE MESSAGE (MSG)
A PILGRIM SONG
1-2 Help, God—the bottom has fallen out
of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
Listen to my cries for mercy.
doings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
5-6 I pray to God—my life a prayer—
and wait for what he'll say and do.
My life's on the line before God, my Lord,
waiting and watching till morning,
waiting and watching till morning.
7-8 O Israel, wait and watch for God—
with God's arrival comes love,
with God's arrival comes generous
redemption.
No doubt about it—he'll redeem Israel,
buy back Israel from captivity to sin.
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ROMANS 8:6–11
THE MESSAGE (MSG)
Paul contrasts the life of the flesh, which
draws from sin and leads to death, with
the life of the Spirit, which draws from the
Spirit of Christ and leads to righteousness.
This is not a dualist rejection of the body,
but rather a refusal to be controlled by its
impulses. "God who raised Jesus from
the dead will give life to our mortal
bodies through the Spirit."
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their draws from sin and leads to death, with
the life of the Spirit, which draws from the
Spirit of Christ and leads to righteousness.
This is not a dualist rejection of the body,
but rather a refusal to be controlled by its
impulses. "God who raised Jesus from
the dead will give life to our mortal
bodies through the Spirit."
own end up obsessed with measuring their
own moral muscle but never get around to
exercising it in real life. Those who trust
God's action in them find that God's Spirit
is in them—living and breathing God!
Obsession with self in these matters is a
dead end; attention to God leads us out
into the open, into a spacious, free life.
Focusing on the self is the opposite of
focusing on God. Anyone completely
absorbed in self ignores God, ends up
thinking more about self than God. That
person ignores who God is and what he is
doing. God isn't pleased at being ignored.
9-11 But if God himself has taken up
residence in your life, you can hardly be
thinking more of yourself than of him.
Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed
this invisible but clearly present God, the
Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're
talking about. But for you who welcome
him, in whom he dwells—even though you
still experience all the limitations of sin—
you yourself experience life on God's
terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that
if the alive-and-present God who raised
Jesus from the dead moves into your life,
he'll do the same thing in you that he did
in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself?
he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you
are delivered from that dead life. With his
Spirit living in you, your body will be as
alive as Christ's!
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JOHN 11:1–45
THE MESSAGE (MSG)
The story of the death and the raising of
Lazarus, a foretaste of Jesus’ own death
and resurrection and of what all of us
buried and raised with Christ in the
sacrament of baptism both acknowledge
and freely receive. Lazarus is dead, long
dead, stinking dead. Jesus is in
resurrection and life, and raises Lazarus
from the dead.THE DEATH OF LAZARUS
1-3 A man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany,
the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
This was the same Mary who massaged
the Lord's feet with aromatic oils and then
wiped them with her hair. It was her
brother Lazarus who was sick. So the
sisters sent word to Jesus, "Master, the
one you love so very much is sick."
4 When Jesus got the message, he said,
"This sickness is not fatal. It will become
an occasion to show God's glory by
glorifying God's Son."
5-7 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus, but oddly, when he heard that
Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he
was for two more days. After the two days,
he said to his disciples, "Let's go back to
Judea."
8 They said, "Rabbi, you can't do that. The
Jews are out to kill you, and you're going
back?"
9-10 Jesus replied, "Are there not twelve
hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in
daylight doesn't stumble because there's
plenty of light from the sun. Walking at
night, he might very well stumble because
he can't see where he's going."
11 He said these things, and then
announced, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen
asleep. I'm going to wake him up."
12-13 The disciples said, "Master, if he's
gone to sleep, he'll get a good rest and
wake up feeling fine." Jesus was talking
about death, while his disciples thought he
was talking about taking a nap.
14-15 Then Jesus became explicit:
"Lazarus died. And I am glad for your
sakes that I wasn't there. You're about to
be given new grounds for believing. Now
let's go to him."
16 That's when Thomas, the one called the
Twin, said to his companions, "Come along.
We might as well die with him."
17-20 When Jesus finally got there, he
found Lazarus already four days dead.
Bethany was near Jerusalem, only a couple
of miles away, and many of the Jews were
visiting Martha and Mary, sympathizing with
them over their brother. Martha heard Jesus
was coming and went out to meet him. Mary
remained in the house.
21-22 Martha said, "Master, if you'd been
here, my brother wouldn't have died. Even
now, I know that whatever you ask God he
will give you."
23 Jesus said, "Your brother will be raised
up."
24 Martha replied, "I know that he will be
raised up in the resurrection at the end of
time."
25-26 "You don't have to wait for the End.
I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The
one who believes in me, even though he or
she dies, will live. And everyone who lives
believing in me does not ultimately die at
all. Do you believe this?"
27 "Yes, Master. All along I have believed
that you are the Messiah, the Son of God
who comes into the world."
28 After saying this, she went to her sister
Mary and whispered in her ear, "The
Teacher is here and is asking for you."
29-32 The moment she heard that, she
jumped up and ran out to him. Jesus had
not yet entered the town but was still at the
place where Martha had met him. When her
sympathizing Jewish friends saw Mary run
off, they followed her, thinking she was on
her way to the tomb to weep there. Mary
came to where Jesus was waiting and fell
at his feet, saying, "Master, if only you had
been here, my brother would not have died."
33-34 When Jesus saw her sobbing and
the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger
welled up within him. He said, "Where did
you put him?"
34-35 "Master, come and see," they said.
Now Jesus wept.
36 The Jews said, "Look how deeply he
loved him."
37 Others among them said, "Well, if he
loved him so much, why didn't he do
something to keep him from dying? After
all, he opened the eyes of a blind man."
38-39 Then Jesus, the anger again welling
up within him, arrived at the tomb. It was a
simple cave in the hillside with a slab of
stone laid against it. Jesus said, "Remove
the stone."
The sister of the dead man, Martha, said,
"Master, by this time there's a stench. He's
been dead four days!"
40 Jesus looked her in the eye. "Didn't I tell
you that if you believed, you would see the
glory of God?"
41-42 Then, to the others, "Go ahead, take
away the stone."
eyes to heaven and prayed, "Father, I'm
grateful that you have listened to me. I
know you always do listen, but on account
of this crowd standing here I've spoken so
that they might believe that you sent me."
out!" And he came out, a cadaver, wrapped
from head to toe, and with a kerchief over
his face.
Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him
loose."
THE MAN WHO CREATES GOD-SIGNS
45-48 That was a turnaround for many of
the Jews who were with Mary. They saw
what Jesus did, and believed in him. But
some went back to the Pharisees and told
on Jesus. The high priests and Pharisees
called a meeting of the Jewish ruling body.
"What do we do now?" they asked. "This
man keeps on doing things, creating God-
signs. If we let him go on, pretty soon
everyone will be believing in him and the
Romans will come and remove what little
power and privilege we still have."
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• 1789 - The first U.S. Congress began
regular sessions at the Federal Hall in New
York City.
• 1814 - Granted sovereignty in the island
of Elba, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates at
Fountainebleau. He was allowed to keep
the title of emperor.
• 1896 - The first modern Olympic Games
began in Athens, Greece.
• 1938 - The United States recognized the
German conquest of Austria.
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MONDAY, APRIL 7TH —
Happy Birthday Jim Snyder!
THE OFFICE IS CLOSED TODAY.
• 1798 - The territory of Mississippi was
organized.
• 1888 - P.F. Collier published a weekly
magazine for the first time under the name
"Collier’s."
• 1922 - U.S. Secretary of Interior leased
Teapot Dome naval oil reserves in
Wyoming.
• 1930 - The first steel columns were set
for construction of the Empire State
Building.
• 1948 - The musical "South Pacific" by
Rogers and Hammerstein debuted on
Broadway.
• 1948 - The United Nations' World Health
Organization began operations.
• 1953 - IBM unveiled the IBM 701
Electronic Data Processing Machine. It
was IBM's first commercially available
computer.
• 1957 - The last of New York City's
trolleys completed its final run from
Queens to Manhattan.
• 1966 - The U.S. recovered a hydrogen
bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 8TH —
Happy Birthday April Taylor!
Happy Birthday Tom Cline!
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• 1513 - Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon
claimed Florida for Spain.
• 1789 - The U.S. House of Representatives
held its first meeting.
• 1913 - The Seventeenth amendment was
ratified, requiring direct election of
senators.
• 1935 - Work Progress Administration
was approved by the U.S. Congress. This
agency provided 8,000,000 jobs for the
unemployeed during the great depression.
• 2002 - Suzan-Lori Parks became the first
African-American woman to win a Pulitzer
Prize for her play "Top dog/Under dog."
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9TH —
FROM 5:30 P.M TO 7:30 P.M.
LENTEN SERVICES WILL BE HELD IN
ADAIR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT 7 P.M.
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• 1454 - The city states of Venice, Milan,
and Florence signed a peace agreement in
Italy.
• 1682 - Robert La Salle claimed the lower
Mississippi River and all lands that touch
it, for France.
• 1833 - Peterborough, NH, opened the first
municipally supported public library in the
United States.
• 1865 - At Appomattox Court House,
Virginia, General Robert E. Lee
surrendered his Confederate Army to
Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The four
years of fighting had killed 360,000 Union
troops and 260,000 Confederate troops.
• 1867 - The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty
with Russia that purchased the territory of
Alaska by one vote.
• 1947 - 169 people were killed and 1,300
were injured by a series of tornadoes in
Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
• 1963 - Winston Churchill became the first
honorary U.S. citizen.
• 1967 - The first Boeing 737 was rolled out
for use.
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THURSDAY, APRIL 10TH —
Happy Birthday Louise Arter!
Happy Birthday Tiffany Sheeder!
Happy Birthday Geoffrey Avey!
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• 1790 - The U.S. patent system was
established.
• 1814 - Napoleon was defeated at the
Battle of Toulouse by the British and the
Spanish. The defeat led to his abdication
and exile to Elba.
• 1849 - Walter Hunt patented the safety
pin, then he sold the rights for $100.
• 1912 - The Titanic set sail from
Southampton, England.
• 1932 - Paul von Hindenburg was elected
president of Germany with 19 million votes.
Adolf Hitler came in second with 13 million
votes.
• 1941 - In World War II, U.S. troops
occupied Greenland to prevent Nazi
infiltration.
• 1960 - The U.S. Senate passed the Civil
Rights Bill.
• 1972 - An earthquake in southern Iran
killed more than 5,000 people.
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FRIDAY, APRIL 11TH —
Charlie and Vickie Carney!
• Pastor Melodee will be enjoying her
Course of Study through Saturday.
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• 1783 - The U.S. Congress proclaimed a
formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.
• 1814 - Napoleon was forced to abdicate
his throne.
• 1899 - The treaty ending the Spanish-
American War was declared in effect.
• 1921 - Iowa became the first state to
impose a cigarette tax.
• 1941 - Germany bombers blitzed
Conventry, England.
• 1945 - During World War II, American
soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration
camp of Buchenwald in Germany.
• 1947 - Jackie Robinson became the first
black baseball player in major-league
history.
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SATURDAY, APRIL 12TH —
• 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacked
Constantinople.
• 1861 - Fort Sumter was shelled by the
Confederacy, starting America's Civil War.
• 1945 - U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, Georgia.
He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the
age of 63. Harry S Truman was then
president.
• 1955 - The University of Michigan Polio
Vaccine Evaluation Center announced that
the polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was
"safe, and effective."
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FUTURE FOCUS —
Holy Week begins April 13th,
on Palm Sunday.
•SUNDAY, APRIL 20TH IS EASTER
• The Festival of God’s Creation - falls
on Easter Sunday.
Thank you for your many contributions of
service this week. Your hard work is very
much appreciated.
Do you hear the motor? Thanks to you,
it's still hummin'.
God Bless and Keep You,
Donna
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