Christ has risen, he has risen indeed, hallelujah! Christ has risen, he has risen indeed, hallelujah! Christ has risen, he has risen indeed, hallelujah!

Living in grace because the tomb is empty. You may be thinking, how in Heaven’s name does an empty tomb tie to living in grace?

My friends in Christ, it has everything to do with grace.

A lot of people think that grace was what Jesus did on the cross and there is no doubt that is the case, but when you think of the second half of what Jesus did for us after He took our sin upon Him and went to hell to dump them where they belong, He came back and made it very clear that this Grace isn’t just forgiveness of sin, but also everlasting life.

That promise was fulfilled when the stone in front of tomb where He was laid to rest miraculously rolled away and He walked out, alive.

You don’t see that happen too often anymore do you? Someone in the tomb for three days and – bingo! – up He gets and out He walks?

It was one day shorter than Lazarus was in the tomb, but Jesus was playing a part in that one as well.

Remember Lazarus?

Max Lucado says this about Lazarus: “What Jesus did with Lazarus, he is willing to do with us, which is good to know, for what Martha said about Lazarus can be said about us too, ‘But, Lord, it has been four days since he died. There will be a bad smell.’ Martha was speaking for us all. The human race is dead in sin, and there is a bad smell to it. We have been dead a long time. We don’t need to fix us up; we need someone to raise us up. In the muck and the mire of what we call life, there is death, and we have been in it so long we’ve grown accustomed to the stench. But Christ hasn’t. And Christ can’t stand the thought of His children rotting in a cemetery. So, He comes in and calls us out. We are the corpses, and He is the corpse-caller. We in fact are the dead, and he is the dead-raiser. Our task is not to get up but to admit we are dead. The only ones who remain in the grave are the ones who don’t think they are there.”

“The stone has been moved. “Lazarus, come out!” He yells. But today is the same as then for He still calls out, ‘Larry! Connie! Sue! Mike! Chris! Come out!’

“The question for us all is this - will we come out?”

The stroll Lazarus took from the grave would ultimately lead to a return to the grave at some point. He would die again but live again as well.

The stroll Jesus called Lazarus to take from the grave was a stroll to eternal life, a promise to all who believe that their sins are gone, and the way has been paved for salvation.

Although we will die on this earth it was this stroll of Jesus from the grave that assured us of continued grace and certain salvation.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to lead by example as we change this community for Christ and to do so, we have to first live in the grace He has offered us, so we are protected from the evil that seeks to destroy us.

We must embrace each other in love and live each and every day in God’s grace. When that happens, this community will flourish once again.

We will talk more about this at First Lutheran Church on Easter Sunday.

The day begins with Bible Study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m., a hot Easter lunch after worship and an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids at 1 p.m.

Please come as you are and join us for this wonderful day of celebration.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

Starting in April, Medicare will mail new Medicare cards to all people with Medicare, to help protect you from identity fraud.

Fraudsters are always looking for ways to get your Social Security number, so we’re removing those numbers from Medicare cards to make them safer.

Your new card will have a new Medicare number that’s unique to you. The new card will help protect your identity and keep your personal information more secure.

You can start using your new card as soon as you get it. Your Medicare coverage and benefits won’t change at all.

Medicare will automatically mail your new card -- at no cost -- to the address you have on file with Social Security. So make sure your mailing address is up to date.

If your address needs to be corrected, contact Social Security at ssa.gov/myaccount or 1-800-772-1213. TTY users can call 1-800-325-0778.

If Social Security has your current mailing address, there’s nothing else you need to do to receive your new card.

Mailing everyone a new card will take time. Your card might arrive at a different time than your friend’s or neighbor’s.

Once you get your new Medicare card, take these three steps to make it harder for someone to steal your information and identity:

Destroy your old Medicare card right away.

Doctors, other health care providers, and health plans approved by Medicare know Medicare is replacing the old cards. They are ready to accept your new card when you need care.

Beware of anyone who contacts you and asks for your new Medicare number, personal information, or to pay a fee for your new card. There are no charges whatsoever for the new cards.

Guard your card. Treat your new Medicare number like you treat your Social Security or credit card numbers. Only give your new Medicare number to doctors, pharmacists, insurers, or other people you trust to work with Medicare on your behalf.

Medicare will never call you uninvited and ask you to give us personal or private information to get your new Medicare card.

Scam artists may try to get personal information (like your current Medicare number) by contacting you about your new card. If someone asks you for your information, or for money, or threatens to cancel your health benefits if you don’t share your personal information, hang up and call us at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

Your new Medicare card will be paper. Paper cards are easier for many providers to use and copy, and they save taxpayers a lot of money. Plus, you can print your own replacement card if you need one.

Carry your new card and show it to your health care providers. Doctors, other providers, and health care facilities will ask for your new Medicare card when you need care.

If you forget your new card, you, your doctor, or other health care provider may be able to look up your new Medicare number online.

If you’re in a Medicare Advantage plan (like an HMO or PPO), your Medicare Advantage plan ID card is your main card for Medicare – you should still keep and use it whenever you need care.

However, you also may be asked to show your new Medicare card, so you should carry this card with you, too.

If you don’t get your new Medicare card by April 2019, call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). TTY users can call 1-877-486-2048.

Greg Dill is Medicare’s regional administrator for Arizona, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. You can always get answers to your Medicare questions by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

Good Friday is a very sacred day. It is the one day of the year where the altar in many churches is stripped bare, reminding us of what Jesus did for us on Good Friday almost 2,000 years ago.

The black cloak draping the cross reminds us of the darkness that beset the land that day. The dark clothes worn by clergy remind us of the solemn nature of this day as we mourn the brutal death of the One who chose to die rather than have His beloved lambs go to slaughter themselves.

It is a day to mourn. It is a day of sacrifice remembered. It is a day to be forever embraced by the reality that, on this day, when Jesus died, grace was born, and it became, for all who believe in Him the guarantee of eternal life.

Grace is the word we will forever use to define just how amazing it really is. Good Friday is the day we remember what it really means to live in grace by sacrifice.

On the day Jesus died, the word grace was defined forever. It was on that day He spoke seven sentences from the cross.

Those seven last words said everything that needed to be said about grace, but the ones that defined grace most clearly to us were the first three.

With spit landing on His body, with jeers pelting at His ability to maintain sanity, with the pain vivid on every part of His body, he rises above everything and says to those who are doing everything to degrade Him to the lowest of low, when He should have called on the legion of angels and said, “Kill them all!” He instead says, “Father forgive them.” That’s grace!

In the second word from the cross, when the thief next to him, you remember him right, he’s the one who shouted obscenities at Jesus at the beginning but who suddenly felt the presence of God in his life for the first time, realized this man on a cross next to him was the true definition of grace, He was God Himself … remember that thief – we ought to for we are him.

This crook in dire straits for everything he did all his life to deserve his fate and at the point of death, reached out from the tumult and asked for forgiveness to be given, Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” That’s grace.

When Jesus saw His mother in agony and His beloved disciple there trying to comfort her, Jesus looked beyond the fact that this followers had betrayed Him by running away when Jesus needed Him most, looked beyond the fact that this man still hadn’t figured things out despite what he had seen Jesus do and heard what Jesus said, looked beyond this man’s sinfulness and instead focused on someone else in need and responded accordingly by saying, "Woman, this is your son." Then he said to the disciple: "This is your mother."

Serving to the bitter end, caring to the bitter end, a shepherd to the bitter end, and committed to grace to the bitter end? That’s grace.

The truth is we can never give enough when it comes to grace … that’s why it is free and that is why it is so important for this community!

Sharing that grace for the betterment of Lucerne and beyond is imperative at a time when the neighborhood is in such need of it.

Living in grace through sacrifice. We can do that with our neighbors here and now in Lucerne!

Please join us at First Lutheran Church on Friday at noon as we remember the sacrifice of Jesus on Good Friday.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

Living in grace through Holy Communion. What a more fitting celebration to focus on than the Lord’s Supper as we remember His last meal on earth with His beloved disciples and the instruction to continue this Sacrament in His church for perpetuity.

There are many beliefs regarding Holy Communion, some of those beliefs ending up being deemed “cheap grace” because the bread and wine are of no significance in that belief structure.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers this definition, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal admission. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

The one thing that is for certain as we gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper is the fact that Holy Communion is packed with power. Reality is, anything associated with grace is packed with power, the very power of God.

Luther refers to the sacrament of Holy Communion in many ways but all point to the same thing, the grace of God, the forgiveness of sin, the very presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

The words of Jesus were a covenant, a new covenant, a promise from God Himself, and when God makes a promise, as we see everywhere in Scripture, He keeps the promise.

The promise here – this cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sin. And when there is sin forgiven there is Grace present.

With that said, how can we not come to the Lord’s Table, especially on Maundy Thursday, and experience the miraculous presence of the One who invites us here?

How can we the people of Lake County not embrace the power of God’s love and forgiveness?

When we gather as one in Christ, miracles happen. We become a family working together to make our town something special.

God has plans for us, he shows us every day, every time we experience something that makes us feel uncomfortable or incomplete.

Join us Thursday at First Lutheran Church and be part of the process of renewal in Lucerne!

Worship on Thursday evening will be at 6 p.m. but come early because prior to the service, we offer a soup supper at 5 p.m.

Good Friday’s service is at noon and Easter Sunday we gather for Bible Study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m., a hot Easter lunch following the service and then an Easter Egg hunt for the kids at 1 p.m.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

As we enter into Holy Week we can’t help but focus on living in grace by being humble just as Jesus humbled Himself.

We are forever reminded as Christians that the events of Holy Week are an example of what our lives in humility ought to be like.

We see that humility begin as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday knowing the shouts of joy that day would turn to screams of hate and ultimately His death on Good Friday.

Clearly Holy Week was a humbling time for Jesus and an eternal example of our need to be humble in this world. With that said, what is it like to live humbly?

Real humility is bowing down and washing someone’s feet, or embracing a leper, or having a centurion of Roman stature accept the reality of God before him and seeking help that only Divinity could provide.

Perhaps humility is accepting the need to be a servant to all no matter what the cost, or maybe looking past the desire to accept glory or be prideful and instead turn it over to the only one who deserves it, or maybe offering forgiveness to someone of their sin in an effort to be like Jesus who forgave everybody.

In Lake County there are many ways to be humble.

The most important is by being a servant to the lowliest of the low and accepting of the fact that through this humility, we can do wonderful things – and do it all without expecting glory through of a prideful attitude.

You see, the problem with pride is that it puts you in opposition with God. There is only one who can receive glory, and when we try to steal some of His glory for ourselves, we commit the same sin that caused Satan to be cast out of heaven.

That’s why the Bible says that God did not choose the wise and the beautiful and those who had everything together to do His work.

He chose the weak, the poor, the sick because they understood the only way they could ever accomplish anything of any value would be through God’s power.

And so, whenever something good happened, they would naturally give all the glory to God. They get this from living in absolute humility, just as Jesus did.

With that said, what we need here in Lake County is:

– more servants and less pedestals;
– more you and less me;
– more give and less take;
– more laughter and less depression;
– more agape and less eros;
– more good and less evil
– simply, more Jesus and less Satan …

When you are on your knees, it is amazing what you see in front of you, beside you, and on top of you.

You see a county in desperate need of grace and you see a cross where we can get it.

We will dig deeper into this on Palm Sunday, March 25, so please join us for Bible study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m. and a hot lunch immediately following the worship service.

All are welcome, so please come as you are.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

Living in grace through obedience, the same obedience that Jesus showed us by being obedient unto death, even death on a cross, all for the sake of love for us, to give us grace of an eternal nature.

It never ceases to amaze me how God works. He is an example to us in all we say and in all we do. When James and John wanted to be No. 1 and No. 2 in Heaven (Mark 10:37ff), Jesus reminded them of their real place in the pecking order of life.

If they were to be disciples of Christ, they must not be in positions of authority where they received the glory that the Pharisees and chief priests demanded, rather as lowly servants, obedient to their brother; for as a servant to our brother, we become No. 1 in the eyes of the Lord.

But that is tough duty! When you are an obedient servant you must accept the reality that there is no glory, there is no life on easy street, there is no fame or fortune, and that you are no better than the next guy; essentially it means becoming a slave to servanthood.

There is no doubt that when we live in grace through obedience, we will gladly accept the need for absolute humility, absolute servant-hood, absolute dependence on the very grace of God.

Unfortunately, that is against everything the world wants us to be; a society that believes the world revolves around me in a me-centric culture.

What the world needs to revolve around is the cross of Christ and the very obedience, servanthood, and humility that goes with being a follower of the one who was nailed to that cross.

That kind of servanthood must be the basis of the recovery of Lake County.

Can you imagine what would happen if we applied the same principles of serving Lake County as Jesus did serving others throughout His ministry?

What might we imagine and how can we apply those principles here and now to approach the imaginable possibilities?

Jesus is a risk taker of the highest order. We need to ask ourselves, can I remain in my comfort zone and truly serve him right here, right now? Am I willing to put others ahead of myself? Am I willing to take the risk?

Consider this, in the parable of the workers in the vineyards (Matt 20:1-16), Jesus ends the parable by saying, “the last will be first, and the first last.”

Can we do that here in Lake County?

And my answer is a resounding, “In Jesus’ name, yes we can” by being servants.

Bottom line, our task here is significant, but if we all become servants, willing to be obedient, willing to take the risk to respond to God’s word, and then working collectively towards the common goal of the restoration of a beautiful town like Lucerne as an example, it will happen.

But we must first be last.

We will dig deeper into this at First Lutheran Church on Sunday, March 18, so please join us for Bible Study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m. and a hot lunch immediately following the worship service.

This week we offer the community our monthly food cupboard from 1 to 2 p.m. If you are in need of food, personal hygiene products, clothes or even diapers, please come and join us and let us be your servant in providing this much needed assistance.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.