[00:00] Speaker 1: (peaceful music)

[06:09] Speaker 2: (slow organ music)

[09:36] Speaker 2: (bell rings)

[09:41] Speaker 3: Please stand as we join our voices together in our call to worship. Praise the Lord, my soul. All my inmost being, praise His holy name.

[09:53] Speaker 2: Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits.

[09:59] Speaker 3: Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.

[10:03] Speaker 2: Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. (organ music) (singing) Oh, for the hundreds of reasons, my Creator's praise. The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace. The name of Jesus drives our fears and bids our sorrows cease; 'tis music in the sinner's ears, 'tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of man's own sin, he sets the prisoner free; his blood can make the foulest clean, his blood a bill for thee. He speaks, and whispy dews rise where the fountains never see; the marvel no man eyes rejoice, the humble believe. To God all glory, great and wisdom, now and forever. Amen.

[12:09] Speaker 2: (applause)

[12:19] Speaker 4: God's true glory forever. Glory.

[12:40] Speaker 3: The God who gathers the whole church, the church here, the church militant, and the church triumphant with him in heaven all are gathered to worship him. And he himself is among us, and he greets us with these words, saying, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ through the mighty and present work of God's Holy Spirit."

[13:04] Speaker 4: Amen.

[13:08] Speaker 3: Welcome to evening worship at La Grave Church. It's good to see your faces. Um, it's good also to know that there are others of you joining in worship tonight online. We hope and pray that this service is a blessing to those who are here as well as those who worship at a distance. And we pray that God will use this time to draw you closer to himself, give you fuel for the week, and that he receives our prayers and hears our praises as we gather in his name tonight. If you are a La Grave regular, um, at night, you notice already that that evening service order of worship is thicker than it sometimes is, because we're celebrating communion and you have a longer liturgy than usual. Um, if you are visiting at La Grave and you receive communion in your home church, don't worry, we're gonna talk you through that in a little while at that time in the service. And you too are welcome at this table as it is offered to us tonight.

[14:05] Speaker 3: Our scripture passage for the sermon tonight is from the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, and it is a strange passage, but in it, through hearing God's word, bones come to life. So listen now to what Jesus himself says from the Book of John about life coming out of death. Here, Jesus is talking to the Jewish religious authorities who are challenging the legitimacy of his ministry. Hear these words from John 5. "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and he will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given the Son authority to judge, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.

[15:24] Speaker 3: Those who have done what is good will rise to live. Those who have done wha- what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." Amen.

[15:45] Speaker 4: (organ music) (singing) Christ, the light of all the world. Christ, the strength of all our hope. Christ, for us yourself once killed. To guard our sins and make us pure. Through the suffering and the pain, life eternally retained. Thousand thousand thanks are due. Dearest Jesus, unto you. You have suffered great affliction, bear the form and vision be, even death by crucifixion, our atonement full and free. For you chose to be tormented, that the world should be remitted. Thousand thousand thanks are due. Dearest Jesus, unto you. For you opened wide our pardon, bore the sorrow, the endless war. The curse has lost, and death is conquered, for you, the grave, have been defeated. Thousand thousand thanks are due. Dearest Jesus, unto you.... door.

[18:31] Speaker 4: For the victory of our dying sin, for nature mortifying, thousand, thousand ways are through, dearest Jesus, come to you.

[20:19] Speaker 3: Amen.

[20:41] Speaker 4: (Singing) Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me, spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

[20:59] Speaker 3: Spirit of the living God, in You we live and move and have our being. In this time and place, You have given us hearts to love You, hands to serve You, and minds to know You. We thank You for these gifts. One of the very best gifts You've given is your presence, living in and among us by the Holy Spirit. Thank You for helping us in our weakness, giving direction to our lives, allowing us purpose and meaning beyond ourselves. Lord, our God, hold the worries, distractions, habits, and patterns that entangle us. Thank You for being both judge, who decides with justice and righteousness, and merciful Savior, who delivers us at great cost. You are worthy, Lord, to receive glory and honor and praise. Lord, tonight we would ask for a strong sense of Your work in us individually and in our congregation. We do not doubt Your faithfulness, but we confess that sometimes our own faith is small. Give us day-by-day moments where we may turn toward You and to follow where You take us.

[22:29] Speaker 3: Hold out to us the word of life that saves us. Lord, we do not ask for heavenly vision that makes us of little earthly use. Instead, we ask for recalibrated vision, so that what is most important to You comes into sharper focus for us. Help us serve You well with our words and our lives. Jesus, You know those in our community longing for healing and wholeness. Some of us carry serious diagnoses, physical pain, worries about test results, or do the hard work of rehab. Some of us seek relational repair or friends that help ease the burden of loneliness. Others of us wonder how to contribute our gifts for this season of our lives. Some of us continue to ache over the fault lines in our church and in our world. So here now, for just a few moments, are silent concerns as we name them to You.

[24:11] Speaker 3: Lord, sometimes we hardly dare to begin to name the things that hurt because we don't know if we'll stop. You know how big the problems we see can be. We know You are the ultimate reconciler of this world. We want to be faithful with the small things You ask of us because we believe that acts of small faithfulness please You.So show us the way. We call on you tonight with thankfulness for the invitation we hear in Jesus. We thank you for the feast for our souls that awaits us at your table. We call on you tonight, bringing our discouragements and anxieties to you and asking you to transform them into steps we take toward you in the surefootedness of Christian hope. God, tonight we give you unfinished tasks and unsolved problems and unfulfilled hopes. In your great love and protection and purpose, we entrust you, entrust ourselves to you, and we entrust those for whom we have prayed to you as well, because in the strong name of Jesus we pray, amen.

[25:29] Speaker 3: (gentle music plays)

[25:42] Speaker 4: Spirit of the living God, fruit of the Father's heart. Make us one in heart and mind. Make us one in love. Come, O, carry selfless sharing. Spirit of the living God, fill our lives with love.

[26:39] Speaker 3: Our scripture reading for tonight is from the middle of the Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel Chapter 37 verses 1 to 14. That's on page 1349 of your pew Bibles. Listen to these words. "The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' I said, 'Sovereign Lord, you alone know.' Then he said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. "I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin, and I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.

[27:57] Speaker 3: Then you will know that I am the Lord."' So I prophesied as I was, as I was commanded, and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says. Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live.'" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army. Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone. We are cut off.' Therefore, prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says. My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you back up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel.

[29:23] Speaker 3: Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you out of them. I will put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it,' declares the Lord." This is the word of the Lord.

[29:48] Speaker 2: Thanks be to God.

[29:54] Speaker 3: In his book, A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wonders if it might be possible for people to ask God questions that have no answers. "Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable?" Lewis asks. "Quite easily, I would think," he says. "All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask, half of our great theological and metaphysical problems are like that."In the strange verses that we just read from Ezekiel 37, God asks an unanswerable question of a human. He flips Lewis's order. Instead of a human asking God a nonsense question, in the Valley of Dry Bones, God asks the very human Ezekiel a nonsense question. "Son of man, look around. Can these bleached bones live?" And because Ezekiel can't respectfully say, "Of course not," he says instead, "Sovereign Lord, you know." (smacks lips) It's hard to know what lies under Ezekiel's answer to that nonsense question. Maybe it's a sense of deep resignation.

[31:33] Speaker 3: I just don't know. Maybe it's profound faith that God is good and that He wills the good and He will act in whatever way He sees as good. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Either way, Ezekiel's answer reflects the tempered hope of someone who has suffered, so he lobs that unanswerable question back squarely into God's court. "Sovereign Lord, you alone know if there is life after this kind of destruction." Ezekiel was from Jerusalem. He was educated as a priest and he had the distinction of serving people whose faith and hope were at about the lowest ebb they could be at in this time in Israelite and Judean history. Ezekiel was contemporary with Daniel and with Jeremiah, and he lived about 600 years before the time of Jesus. As a young man, he was deported 1,000 miles away from home with thousands of his fellow members of Jerusalem to Babylon. And now, very, very far away from his home, Ezekiel serves among refugees near the Kebar River.

[33:03] Speaker 3: Psalm 137 gives us a little window into the tone of the spirit of those people sometimes. "By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. How can we sing the songs of the Lord in this strange land?" So God's nonsense question in Ezekiel's vision, "Can these dry bones live?" fits the hopelessness of the people's situation, because they lost more than their homes and their livelihoods when they had to move and were forced out by Babylon. They lost their connection, their sense of rootedness and stability in the God of Heaven and Earth who had called them to belong to Him. They lost the ability to come into His temple, to worship Him, to be God's neighbors in the place where His gl- glory dwelt, in the temple. So in the passage that we just read, there's one little verse in Ezekiel 37 that gives God's three-part diagnosis to what these people are suffering from. It's not actually a bad way to think of the overall tone of the ministry that Ezekiel is carrying out.

[34:24] Speaker 3: God says, "The people are saying this: 'Our bones are dry. Our hope is gone. We ourselves are cut off, destroyed.'" That's the stated condition of God's people from their place of exile, but it's also to say that that dry bone sickness there by the River Kebar is not so different from what was beginning, already, festering among Ezekiel's people back in Jerusalem. Whenever the people of Israel and Judah reject God as their primary source of strength and life, the long-term outlook doesn't look so good. It looks like death. The scene that Ezekiel is perceiving in the valley, the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, stands for both physical death and spiritual death, its close cousin. Another good word for spiritual death is despair, a kind of living death. So God puts His hand (sighs) on Ezekiel and the Spirit transports him to a valley wasteland that's the stuff of nightmares. As far as the eye can see, there are bones, a mass grave without proper burial.

[35:56] Speaker 3: A skull over there, a rib cage over here. Ezekiel doesn't get to perch on a distant plateau and survey the scene through binoculars. He follows God right through the carnage. Leg bones and ankles, femurs and hips, spines and shoulder blades. Some skeletons are whole, others are not. Ezekiel feels the wind on his face and coughs. A crow's cry sounds in the sky and Ezekiel feels oppressed.... By the spiritual and physical death in that space. These bones are dead, not mostly dead, slightly alive in the Miracle Max way, if you're familiar with Rob Reiner's movie, The Princess Bride. There's no careful pill that's gonna bring these bones back. No resuscitation power in the world can make these bones live. And if Ezekiel didn't know better, God's question would almost sound taunting. "Can these bones live? Sovereign Lord, only you know." And then the Lord gives Ezekiel a task, to preach to the least attentive audience he's ever encountered, a valley of dry bones.

[37:43] Speaker 3: "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. 'I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you. You will come to life, and then you will know that I am the Lord.'" So, a great rattling ricochets through the valley, and bone strikes bone as if assembled by a hundred invisible workers. Cartilage comes to cushion the joints. Tendons strap muscles to structure. Skin spreads seamlessly over the trunk and the limbs, and just like that, the company of those long dead look as though they might be just sleeping. But as yet, there is still no life, because as yet, there is no breath. So, another word is needed. "'Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Come, breath from the four winds, and breathe into these slain that they may live.' So, I prophesied again, as he commanded me, and breath entered them. They came to life.

[39:07] Speaker 3: They stood up on their feet, a vast army." Ezekiel preaches to that breath from the four winds of the earth, and a wind sent by God rushes through the valley, breathing life into these long dead. Those God has formed and made, reformed and remade. He also now refills, just like he did with Adam at creation. The bones become living beings. And a picture of life out of death is etched indelibly on Ezekiel's mind's eye. It lends power to the preached word that he will bring back to the people of God, "I'm going to open your graves. I am going to bring you up out of them. I will put my spirit in you, and I will settle you in your own land. And you will know that I am the Lord." Whether or not this passage over here, this passage in Ezekiel is a good one for us to point to as we seek to find scripture references that help us with the Christian doctrine of resurrection is a matter of some debate.

[40:33] Speaker 3: Of course, as Christians, we believe in life beyond the grave, that to be absent from our bodies is to be fully present with our Lord. We believe that our bodily resurrected Jesus will return and resurrect our bodies as well to be like his own glorious body. But at the time of Ezekiel, the exiles were still sorting out their understanding of how this worked, what, what is, was their life after death. A hundred years or so, but, before the time of Ezekiel, the writer of Ecclesiastes was e- expressing his characteristic uncertainty about all things, and he said, "Who knows whether the spirit of a man goes upward and the spirit of the animals goes down into the earth?" Who knows?

[41:29] Speaker 3: And later, still before Ezekiel, but after e- after the writer of Ecclesiastes, Daniel says, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." So, at the very least, Ezekiel's audience of exiles had powerful expectation that God had the power over life and death, over blessing and cursing. And death itself was not an obstacle for God in their concepts. There's lots of Old Testament stories, they're rare, but they're there, of how God shows up in places of death and brings life. But that didn't happen very often. So, perhaps more urgently for the near term for Ezekiel's listeners, they're sorting out, do they have any future, any living future worth looking forward to with God at all? The exiles faced despair as a kind of living death.

[42:35] Speaker 3: If the long dead skeleton of the people of Israel was going to have any chance of renewed earthly life and renewed earthly hope, God would have to be the one to do something about that.And through Ezekiel's vision and through his preaching, God does. A Hebrew word that shows up 10 times in these verses is ruah. If you've been in church your whole life, you've heard that word before. (sighs) It's hard to spot it in our passage, because in English we have different words for it. Anytime you see the English word spirit or breath or wind, that's ruah. So ruah is the spirit that brings Ezekiel the vision. Ruah is the breath that God sends by the ruah wind of creation to refill those bodies with life. No less importantly, ruah is the spirit, the personal presence of God that he promises to send when he says, "I will put my spirit on you and you will live." Ruah is the God-breathed life on which everything depends. In this passage it assures both physical and spiritual life.

[44:10] Speaker 3: It assures the death of despair and the restoration of hope. And I wonder if there's anything about the Israelites' situation that speaks to us. When you look at the world around you, when you look at your relationships, when you look at your own body, when you look at your own heart, is your primary song a song of hope? Is it a song of lament? If you're honest, would you say tonight that you might be right there raising the refrain of the dry bones? "Our bones are dry. Our hope is gone. We ourselves are cut off. Our bones are dry. Our hope is gone. We ourselves are cut off." And some of us may have really good reason to lift just such a refrain to our God. And Ezekiel's line gives us an outline to riff on, as we do. But because of that ruah of God, physical death and spiritual despair are never the last word. They're never the last verse of the song. There is always hope. Living in hope doesn't mean we come with false cheerfulness.

[45:46] Speaker 3: It doesn't mean we sand down the jagged edges real quickly about how bad things are. Christian hope is actually the thing that allows us to say how bad things are without losing our way in the middle of that valley. The compass of hope still points true north. If lent teaches us anything, it's that. Living in biblical hope also means that this is our song. I'm not my own. I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to Jesus. We can refuse to call ourselves our own masters in control of our destiny. We can anchor our hope in the God who allows us to live by trust, and the one who is both the source of our life and the goal of our life. The lives we live, we live to him. The hope we have, we have from him. This week I read an article by a faculty member from Denver Seminary who also was working, at the time he wrote the article, as a physician in a clinic for homeless people.

[47:09] Speaker 3: He tells the story of interacting with a client at the clinic who reported to him that he had attempted suicide more times than the doctor cared to count. The large number shocked even the physician, who was seasoned in working in that field. Each time, the patient said, something surprising happened to intervene and save his life. And then the patient said something interesting to the doctor. He said, "I don't think there's a lot of use in my trying that again. God must have a reason I'm still here." The patient's comment prompted that Christian doctor to keep wondering about treating more than physical death. What was going to come along to keep this man's spirit alive? For the patient, seeing his life in the light of a purpose and a power beyond himself strengthened him for here and for now, didn't change his circumstances, but gave him hope, still and all.

[48:22] Speaker 3: And so the doctor wondered, if the patient's sickness wasn't simply a physical problem or a mental health problem, those are big, but also spiritual despair, who was gonna come along and keep fr- filling fresh infusions of hope into that person? It wasn't the right field of treatment for the medical system, but frequent reminders, frequent glimpses of a God who establishes life for dry bones and fresh breath for renewed spirits would be a key part of this patient's path-... to renewed life. When, perhaps, has God's gift of enlivening hope breathed into your weary soul from the outside? Maybe it has come in ways so ordinary they're almost unnoticeable unless you're paying attention. Maybe it's come in the form of a friend's phone call to check in with you, just to say hi. Maybe it's come in the form of someone's small act of service.

[49:33] Speaker 3: Or maybe the hope has arrived in a bigger way as a sort of little resurrection, new life for your soul, an inexplicable sense of God's care in the middle of the dark valley, a dream that jolts you awake, aware of the weighty glory of God's presence with you, a scripture passage that hits your heart again, but you hear it afresh. Friends at La Grave, if you have your own stories of the Spirit's fresh infusions of hope, please don't keep them to yourselves. If there are appropriate times and places, speak them out. The people around you need to know. As God's breath gives life to inanimate bones in a valley, God's Spirit breathes God's own life into God's people, because Jesus lives. Because Jesus lives, God holds our hope, God guarantees the ultimate fulfillment of promises still in the works, and God sustains and feeds our hope at this table in the meantime.

[51:00] Speaker 3: So praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us new birth into a living hope, into an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade, that is kept in heaven for you. Let's pray. Jesus, You, um, you who walked out of a grave know that we are more, um, than mechanical, animate bodies. We are spirit and flesh together, and so we need Your hope to animate our lives. We thank You for being our source of strength and our source of hope. Amen.

[51:58] Speaker 3: (organ music)

[52:08] Speaker 4: (singing) I then shall live as one whose debt is paid. I walk with joy to all my tasks are gay. I know my name is clearly called by Father. I am His child and I am not afraid. So greatly pardoned, now forgiven of sin. The home of love I gladly will obey. I then shall live as one whose great compassion. I can show love that others love me too. I know how fear builds walls instead of bridges. I dare to seek the

[54:59] Speaker 4: Savior.... relationships we have amissed them. Then I'll be there to care and love through them. Your kingdom come, oh how long and prove them in need. Your power and glory bend and shine through me. Your hallowed name, only thy favorite Father. And may your living kingdom come in me. The bread of life only I share with another. And may You keep the hungry world through me.

[56:43] Speaker 3: This table is prepared as a rest stop that fuels our hope. We believe God is here, and that He feeds us. So if you are visiting at La Grave and you receive communion in your home church, you are welcome here too. We will be, um, coming forward to receive the elements. There'll be a station on both sides at the front here of the sanctuary. All of the bread is gluten-free, so if you have an allergy, um, know that that's covered for you. And at this time, let's turn to the liturgy of the Lord's Supper. The Lord be with you.

[57:25] Speaker 5: And also with you.

[57:27] Speaker 3: Lift up your hearts.

[57:29] Speaker 5: We lift them up to the Lord.

[57:32] Speaker 3: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

[57:34] Speaker 5: It is right for us to give thanks and praise.

[57:39] Speaker 3: With joy we praise You, gracious God, for You created Heaven and Earth, You made us in Your image and kept covenant with us, even when we fell into sin.

[57:49] Speaker 5: We give You thanks for Jesus Christ, our Lord, who by His life, death, and resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.

[58:02] Speaker 3: We praise You that by His blood, Jesus washed away our sin and destroyed the power of death. Through Him, we receive mercy instead of condemnation, hope instead of despair, freedom instead of slavery, life instead of death.

[58:20] Speaker 5: Father, You are the one who makes our dry bones live. Breathe Your life into us and let Your light shine through us. We entrust ourselves to You.

[58:35] Speaker 3: Therefore, we join our voices with all the saints and angels and the whole creation to proclaim the glory of Your name.

[58:43] Speaker 5: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.

[58:56] Speaker 3: Lord our God, send Your Holy Spirit so that this bread and cup may be for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we and all Your saints be united with Christ and remain faithful in hope and love. Gather Your whole Church, oh Lord, into the glory of Your kingdom. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray saying...

[59:21] Speaker 5: "Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

[59:58] Speaker 3: On the night He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and He said, "This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper, He took the cup saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes again." (instrumental music plays)

[01:01:19] Speaker 6: Lift up your hearts unto the Lord. Sing Hallelujah. Sing Hallelujah. Lift up your hearts unto the Lord. In Christ the world has been redeemed. In Christ the world has been redeemed. Sing Hallelujah. Sing Hallelujah. In Christ the world has been redeemed. Therefore we celebrate our feast. Therefore we celebrate our feast. Sing Hallelujah. Sing Hallelujah. In Christ the world has been redeemed. Sing Alleluia to the Lord. Sing Alleluia to the Lord. Sing Alleluia. Sing Alleluia. Sing Alleluia to the Lord.

[01:03:07] Speaker 7: (Background noise)

[01:03:38] Speaker 6: Let us pray together on our knees. Let us pray together on our knees. When I fall on my knees. When my face to the ground is blind. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. Let us fall together on our knees. Let us pray, we fall together on our knees. When I fall on my knees. When my face to the ground is blind. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. Let us praise God together on our knees. Let us praise God together on our knees. When I fall on my face. When my face to the ground is blind. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me.

[01:06:21] Speaker 7: (Coughing) (Paper rustling (Background noise Please stand and join me in the response of praise. Glory to God the Father, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, and crowned Him with glory and honor Glory to God the Son, who lives to plead our cause at the right hand of God, and who will come again to make all things right.Glory to God, the Holy Spirit, who brings us the taste of the good word of God, and the power of the age to come. Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor, power and might, be to the Lord forever. Amen. (organ music plays)

[01:07:41] Speaker 4: (singing) God of grace and God of glory, guide your people, O your power. From your ancient church's story, great is God to warriors power. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of his hour, for the facing of his hour. Through your children's worldly madness, bend our pride to your control. Shape our knowledge and selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss our freedom's goal, lest we miss our freedom's goal. Save us from resignation to leave us weeping poor. Let the gift of your salvation be our glory evermore. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, serving you we adore, serving you, Lord, we adore.

[01:10:36] Speaker 3: People of God go out of this place as people whose inheritance is hope. Go out with God's blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn the light of his face upon you and give you his peace, now and forever.

[01:10:54] Speaker 4: Amen. (tapping) (organ music plays) (singing) God of grace and God of glory, guide your people, O your power. From your ancient church's story, great is God to warriors power. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of his hour, for the facing of his hour. Through your children's worldly madness, bend our pride to your control. Shape our knowledge and selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss our freedom's goal, lest we miss our freedom's goal. Save us from resignation to leave us weeping poor. Let the gift of your salvation be our glory evermore. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, serving you we adore, serving you, Lord, we adore.

[01:13:30] Speaker 8: (music)