Baccalaureate Vespers 2025 – Immanuel Lutheran School

in

In the ancient church, the renunciations at the time of baptism were more robust. Today, in many churches, when a person is baptized, he is asked if he renounces the devil, and all his works, and all his ways. But in the ancient church, there were often more extensive renunciations. One of these was the word “pomp.” “Do you renounce the devil’s pomps?”

“Pomp” comes for the Latin pompa - an ostentatious procession or display. A popular piece of music at secular graduations is called “Pomp and Circumstance.”…

Read More

Trinity 18, 2023

in

There are many congregations, but one church. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church finds its expression in local assemblies. That’s what the word church means: assembly. Today’s Epistle reading is a letter to one of those local assemblies: “To the church of God that is in Corinth.”

We tend to think of Christianity in individual terms, a private faith, a personal experience or decision. Certainly the individual is involved, but Paul writes to Corinth as he does to all the other local congregations: collectively…

Read More