David and Luz Maria Ernst – Serving the Lord in Venezuela

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Somos ricos y mendigos

Lucas 16:19-31

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We are rich men and beggars

The rich man and Lazarus.

Luke 16:19-31

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The self-revelation of the Triune God in baptism

Grace and peace in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Every Sunday we worship the Holy Trinity. We begin the liturgy in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I announce the absolution in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We sing to the three persons of the Trinity in the Gloria Patri, the Kirie Eleison, the Gloria in Excelsis and many hymns. However, today is the special Sunday dedicated to reflecting on the Holy Trinity.

The Book of Concord, the declaration of the beliefs of our church, includes the three creeds, the Apostolic, the Nicene and the Athanasian. Each deals with the doctrine of the Trinity, but today is the Sunday when we confess our faith in the words of the Athanasian Creed, the longest and most detailed of the creeds.

Why three creeds that deal with the same theme? Why is each one longer than the others? Our faith is in the Triune God. According to the command of the Lord in our text for today, we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This doctrine is key to understanding baptism, in addition to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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Que todo oyen la Palabra en su propio idioma

Hoy es el día que nuestro Señor prometió a sus discípulos antes de su ascensión. Les dijo en el libro de los Hechos de los Apóstoles, capítulo 1, “Que no se fuesen de Jerusalén, sino que esperasen la promesa del Padre, la cual, les dijo, oísteis de mí. Porque Juan a la verdad bautizó en agua, mas vosotros seréis bautizados con el Espíritu Santo no muchos días después de estos.” Después de estas palabras, como confesamos en el credo, subió a los cielos para ser sentado a la derecha de Dios Padre todopoderoso, y desde allí ha de venir para juzgar a los vivos y los muertos.
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That all hear the word in their own tongue

Grace and peace in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Today is the day that our Lord promised His disciples before His Ascension. He told them in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, you heard from Me. For John indeed baptized in water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days after these. ” After these words, as we confess in the creed, He ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God Almighty Father, and from there He is to come to judge the living and the dead.

So, today we end with the second article of the Creed, which deals with the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, and we begin with the third article, which deals with the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the day of Pentecost 10 days after the Ascension, which was 40 days after the Resurrection. The feast of Pentecost already existed at that time. That is why there were men from all parts of the Roman Empire in Jerusalem. The word, Pentecost, derived from the Greek, means fifty. For the Jews, it meant 50 days, according to their tradition, after the day when God gave Moses the two tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai. It was also the feast of the first crops of spring, wheat and barley, so, people took their harvest sacrifices to the Temple of Jerusalem to thank God. For us, on this same day we celebrate the delivery of the Holy Spirit to the church to proclaim the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

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