Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “So it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

- Luke 24:45-47

Hey friends, 

These words of Jesus to His disciples were spoken on the evening of His Resurrection which we celebrate this and every Easter. The New Testament writers were concerned with three things: who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and what Jesus taught. Jesus is the fully human and fully divine Son of God; who defeated sin in His death and death in His Resurrection; and who teaches us how to live an eternal kind of life now and forever.

In this amazing scene where Jesus physically appears to His fearful and sorrowful disciples gathered in the upper room, Jesus opens their minds to understand the Scriptures – the very Story of God. He explains to them the meaning of His life, His death and His resurrection – the forgiveness of sins offered to all peoples’ and nations. The pages of the New Testament nearly burst trying to express this beautiful truth. The writers tell us it is like a priest offering a sacrifice for the cleansing of sins, a substitute taking our place of punishment, an innocent man serving the sentence of the guilty, a slave being bought out of slavery into freedom,  a ransom being paid to set a captive free, or prisoners being rescued from captivity. All of this to fulfill God’s plan to destroy evil without destroying His children whose hearts are evil AND to restore the world to all He designed it to be. 

So, when we gather this Easter and proclaim, “He is Risen!” we remind ourselves of God’s great love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us in order to pour out His love on us through the Holy Spirit! We proclaim that in Jesus all that is broken in me and in the world can be and will one day be healed to the glory of God. We also gather to study Jesus’ teaching about living in the kingdom of God now in our relationships with people and things. 

We anticipate this Easter being a wonderful celebration with several different worship opportunities during the week and on Sunday morning. As you know, some of our services can become very crowded. We are making preparations for overflow seating and parking.  We are slightly adjusting our 8am service that morning and encouraging some who may be interested in attending this less crowded service to do so. The order of service will remain largely unchanged, however our musical instrumentation will be a little different – utilizing strings, piano, and a guitar. We will introduce some hymns that are not in our current hymnbook but will be absolutely beautiful and worshipful. 

We certainly hope you will be part of our worship that morning and even invite a friend or two who do not have a church home.  

Your friend,

Steve Wise