When I preached about God’s provision on Sunday (manna in the wilderness and the parable of the laborers and the hours), I had a concrete example from just the day before.
Back in July, thinking ahead about this year’s Anniversary Sunday kicking off our 300th Anniversary celebrations, I reached out to the Evangelical and Reformed Library and Archives in Lancaster. I was looking for some help finding out about the worship services of our founders back in the 1720s.
I was referred to a “new book out” that I purchased and read. It wasn’t bad; it was about the German Reformed Church, but it offered no glimpse of colonial worship. I reached back out, but didn’t get any closer to what I was looking for. Figured I’d keep looking on the internet and/or do something other than what I had planned.
But on Saturday, before Mark’s memorial service, I was speaking with Bob Schneider in front of church. While we were talking, Micah, Mark’s grandson, came out of church and over to us. He had something in his hand. He said to Bob, “My grandma says to give this to you, and that you’ll know what it is about.” I looked at what Micah was holding… The Palatinate Liturgy.
The Palatinate Liturgy was published in 1563 as part of the Palatinate Church order which included also a constitution for the churches of the eponymous region of Germany. It also included a theological statement known as the Heidelberg Catechism. This church order established the Reformed Church in Germany under Elector Frederick III of Heidelberg.
When German Reformed people immigrated to Pennsylvania, many of them brought with them hymnbooks that included the Heidelberg Catechism and all or parts of the Palatinate Liturgy. Although such hymn books became quite scarce on U.S soil before Christopher Saur of Germantown reprinted the Marburg Reformed Hymn Book, Gestreiche Leider, in 1752, they were used as the guide for the early German Reformed worship. It is thought that the founding and first pastors of German Reformed congregations leaned heavily on the Palatinate Liturgy
In 1975, the United Church of Christ published an Order for the Lord’s Supper celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the first communion service of the German Reformed Church in the “United States,” held at Falkner Swamp, in the Pennsylvania colony, on October 15, 1725. That service was adapted from the Palatinate Liturgy of 1563 as translated by Dr. Bard Thompson and first printed in Theology and Life, Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 1963.
The words of our worship service for this Anniversary Sunday have been taken from that 1975 commemorative liturgy without adaptation. But without this publication — that Mark kept, Ellie found and wanted to gift Bob and sent through Micah to deliver when I was standing with Bob — we’d have not had any historical witness. I’ll take that as God’s provision…
What were the chances? That, out of all of Mark’s papers Ellie was going through, she’d fished this one commemorative pamphlet out. And that she brought it that day, wanting to gift it to Bob. And sending Micah out when I was standing right there. I mean, all the other hard-to-believe coincidences could have remained true, but if Micah hadn’t come up to Bob while I was standing right there, Bob wouldn’t have known what I was seeking, and I never would have known…
When I wrote the archivist at the E and R Library and Archives to report my good fortune, she responded cheerily, “Oh, we have 6 or 7 copies of that publication??? God provides indeed.
