When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole world changed and there was no going back. The disciples who followed Jesus knew things would never be the same after the crucifixion, but they didn’t see the future clearly. When they encountered a stranger on the road to Emmaus, their eyes were opened. At that moment, the disciples discovered Jesus is Lord.

This week, Pastor Mia highlights the ways in which the disciples’ journey to Emmaus mirrors our faith journey. The disciples prayed together, and today Christians practice faith in community at Sunday worship, Bible study, and singing together. The disciples also ate meals together. Communion and fellowship are part of today’s worship experience.

On the road to Emmaus, the disciples experienced a mysterious encounter with God. Perhaps you’ve had a vision or a strong experience with God. Furthermore, Jesus opened the disciples minds to understanding the scriptures. The stranger the disciples encountered chastised them for looking for the God they wanted, instead of the God who is. We are no different.

For the disciples, faith was not the arrival but the journey. It is the same for us. When a stranger joins us and a truth is received, our lives are changed.

Mary Riedl, guest preacher, takes us into the difficulty of leaving comfortable places. It's difficult for butterflies, and it's difficult for us. But we are made for it. Leaving comfortable places is where we find life. What safe grave do you need to leave?

Wombs, tombs, and cocoons. In this message about emergence and transformation, Pastor Mia reminds us that Easter is God’s invitation to new life.

The transformation to new life begins in the dark. Sometimes the darkness is a place of pain or sorrow—a tomb. And sometimes the darkness is a place of safety and warmth—a womb. Emerging from the darkness is challenging, especially when it’s comfortable, because we aren’t sure about the new life promised.

Like Jesus and like caterpillars, we have an instinct to move toward transformation. However, emerging to that new life requires the willingness to trust the darkness where transformation begins.

At the crucifixion, Jesus’s disciples betrayed him and they ran and hid. After the resurrection, it all changed. Those disciples publicly preached about Jesus the Christ Risen, and ultimately they were executed for their teachings. That’s a big a transformation.

With the resurrection, we can emerge with Jesus out of the darkness. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, we can be unfurled to all the beauty God calls us to be.

The crowds who followed Jesus lived under violent and repressive Roman occupation. They needed to be saved and couldn’t do it themselves. Because they witnessed Jesus’s teaching and healing, they believed Jesus was the new king would give them the victory. And so, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they welcomed him with a parade.

The victory those crowds anticipated was a military defeat of their Roman rulers, not the moral victory that Jesus delivered. After the Crucifixion, Rome was still in charge, and so where the Pharisees and Herod and the temple leaders. What Christ’s early followers didn’t immediately realize was that when Jesus died on the cross, he was actually launching the victory. Jesus didn’t conquer an empire. Instead, he conquered death by dying.

On this Palm Sunday, Pastor Mia reminds that that the victory was given to early Christians and it is given to us. However, we sometimes miss God’s enormous strength. When a group of women approached Jesus’s tomb on Easter Sunday, they discovered the huge stone at the entrance had been rolled away. God cleared the way for those women and God clears the way for us. After all, only God can move the stone that blocks our way to a free and full life.

All relationships have problems. Failed relationships aren’t necessarily caused by big issues like abuse. More likely, failed relationships are the accumulation of many little things brought on by neglect and disconnection.

We’ve all neglected our relationship with God. We don’t keep the sabbath, we worship the idols of consumerism and materialism, and we fail to help the needy. You could say, God is like that friend should call but you never get around to it.

Jesus, however, got around to dealing with the disconnect. He died on the cross so God could be close to us in a relationship we give freely, by choice.

Jesus restores our relationship with God. This week, Pastor Mia reminds us that following Christ and modeling our lives after him improves all of our relationships. When we stop trying to save ourselves, our relationships change because we are free to love and care for each other.

We all have something we're powerless against. Death is one. The other is the collection of things that get in between us and God. When we admit we are powerless and finally turn to God, Jesus washes away the things that suppress us from living in full relationship with the Lord.

When Jesus makes us clean, he's not washing dirt off our bodies. Instead, he's cleansing us from another type of grime, the captivity of sin and death that make us feel spritually dirty. In this context, clean means life and unclean means death. When we're tainted with sin, we can try to ignore it and we can justify it. However, the result is guilt and self doubt. Although we want sprititual cleanliness, we simply can't achieve it on our own.

At the Last Supper, Jesus humbled himself to an act of service, washing the disciples' feet. In that moment, Jesus demonstrated that faith and loyalty to God are part of being clean. The next day, a reluctant Pontius Pilate turn Jesus over to the authorities to be crucified. Then Pilate washed his hands of the matter, blaming his decision on the crowds Like Pilate, we can try to stifle our guilt, mistakes, and failures, or we can follow the example of Jesus. In other words, there are handwashers, and there are footwashers. On this fourth Sunday of Lent, Pastor Mia asks, which one are you?

In this third Sunday of Lent, we explore the profound ways Jesus is our Savior, focusing on Jesus as a moral example. Jesus teaches us to live a life of love, integrity, and selflessness. Jesus' life is a testament to kingdom living, calling us to shift from self-centeredness to self-giving. Through actions and teachings, Jesus provides a model for moral and ethical living, inspiring us to embody the image of God within us.

Jesus' life inspires us to live with love and integrity, challenging us to reflect God's character in our daily lives.We are reminded of historical figures like Rosa Parks and Oscar Romero, who, inspired by Jesus, stood against injustice and oppression. Their courage and moral fortitude exemplify how one person's actions can ignite a movement towards justice and righteousness.

Jesus as a Moral Example: Jesus' life serves as a powerful moral example, teaching us to live with love, integrity, and selflessness. His actions and teachings guide us to embody the image of God within us, inspiring us to reflect God's character in our daily lives. [19:35]-

The Power of One: Jesus' life inspires us to initiate change through selfless actions. Our individual efforts can create a ripple effect, leading others towards love and righteousness.

John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but how? This week guest speaker Pastor Steve Tollefson wrestles with the question, how did Jesus set us free from sin?

When we try to understand how Jesus’s death on a cross makes it possible for sins to be forgiven, the thing we’re trying to understand is atonement. Atonement is the reconciliation of God and people through the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross.

Scholars have worked to understand atonement by developing various theories. They include the Ransom Theory of Atonement, the Satisfaction Theory of Atonement, and the Moral Theory of Atonement. Although there is some truth in each of these distinct theories, they also have commonalities. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus happened for the purpose of leading us to unity with God.