April 13, 2025
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Maundy Thursday worship Thursday, April 17, 6:30 pm
Good Friday worship Friday, April 18th, Noon & 6:30 pm
Easter Sunday Worship, Sunday, April 20th, 6:30 am and 9:00 am
Easter Breakfast, Sunday, April 20th, 7:30 am. Biscuits and Gravy, Scrambled Eggs, Fruit, Beverage. Free-will offering to support our youth going to camp. Served by Confirmation Youth.
NO WORSHIP THIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16TH
Brass Cleaning on Wednesday, April 16th, 9 am.
Lagers with the Lord April 21st at 6 pm at Buckshot’s.
Crew is on Wednesday, April 23th, at 3:30 pm till 5 pm for all 3rd-6th grade youth. LAST ONE TILL SEPTEMBER!
We are collecting items for our FREE FOOD, FREE STUFF, FOR ALL. This event will be on May 3rd and will be open to our community to help those in need. We are collecting the following items: soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, dish soap, laundry detergent, underwear (men’s & women’s), socks. Please bring those items to the church and place them in the bins in the Narthex.
FREE FOOD, FREE STUFF, FOR ALL Saturday, May 3, 8 am till 10 am. Free breakfast and personal care item distribution for those in need. All are welcome. We are looking for help with this event. See the sign-up in the Narthex or contact the office if you would like to help.
Men’s Band Worship, Sunday, May 4th, 9 am.
Smelt Feed, Sunday, May 4th, 10 am till 11:30 am. Smelt, Meatballs, Tater Tots, Cole Slaw, Garlic Bread, Chips, Baked Beans, Dessert. Free-will offering taken to benefit Trinity Missions. Served by the Trinity Men. Help needed! Sign-up in the Narthex
Voices of Praise every Wednesday night at 7 pm! Come join us for a time of song. A great time to sing with others and have some fun!
We are collecting Cereal for the WestCAP food pantry! Bring your boxes and place them by the altar in the Narthex. Please make sure the cereal is not expired.
SAVERS FUN DRIVE-Bring your household items and clothes to Trinity in May. Every Saturday in May, from 9 am till Noon. We are collecting items as a fundraiser for the Women of Trinity. All items should be clean and in good condition. Place clothes and shoes in white kitchen trash bags and all other items in boxes. Thank you for supporting the Women of Trinity!
MUSINGS FROM PASTOR BRAD
This week is Holy Week, as we journey with Jesus to the cross, his death, and then his resurrection on Easter Sunday. I hope you will join us on this journey through our worship services on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, whether that be in person or online.
In preparation for that, I share with you one of my favorite stories. Here is “The Ragman,” by Walter Wangerin Jr.
I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing in my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush, child. hush now, and I will tell it to you.
Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear tenor voice: ‘Rags!’ Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.
‘Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!’
‘Now this is a wonder,’ I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?
I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Soon the ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, signing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.
The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.
‘Give me your rag,’ he said gently. ‘and I’ll give you another.’
He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.
Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.
‘This is a wonder,’ I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.
‘Rags! Rags! New Rags for old!”
In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.
Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.
‘Give me your rag,’ he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, ‘and I’ll give you mine.’
The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood — his own!
‘Rags! Rags! I take old rags!’ cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.
The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.
‘Are you going to work?’ he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: ‘Do you have a job?”
‘Are you crazy?’ sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket — flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.
‘So,’ said the Ragman. ‘Give me your jacket, and I’ll give you mine.’
So much quiet authority in his voice!
The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman — and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman’s arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on, he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.
‘Go to work,’ he said.
After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.
And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider’s legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.
I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I need to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.
The little old Ragman — he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And I waited to help him in what he did but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he signed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.
Oh how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope — because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.
I did not know — how could I know? — that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night too.
But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.
Light — pure, hard, demanding light — slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow or age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.
Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: ‘Dress me.”
He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!