Passages: Colossians 3:1-4 (from The Message); Matthew 28:1-10

Many people wonder whether the resurrection really happened. The question is not, "Did it happen?" but "Is it still happening?" The promise of the resurrection is not simply what God has done, but what God is still doing. Easter is not over; it is ongoing.

Matthew 21:1-17: Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was a demonstration of the Kingdom of God as an alternative to the Empire of Rome: peace, not war; love, not violence; joy, not coercion.

Ezekiel 37:1-4: God's Spirit is still at work in us and in the Church, giving us hope in the struggle to do hard things. That is where hope is born.

The 23rd Psalm and John's first letter help us to understand how God's companionship transform everything, helping us to affirm, along with the psalmist, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

This sermon explores how it's easier to get the people out of slavery than to get slavery out of the people. During the Exodus journey, the people forgot that God is the One who delivered them from slavery, who values freedom.

In a dialogue sermon on Esther 4:10-17, pastor Joanne Whitt and church member Peter Anderson explore Peter Anderson's experiences as a water protector with the Standing Rock Sioux at Cannon Ball, North Dakota, during the winter of late 2016.

This sermon introduces the season of Lent with Jesus' 40-day journey into the wilderness, where he was tempted, like Adam and Eve, to fill a God-shaped hole with something other other than God, apart from God and apart from his love of God and God's people.

In this final sermon on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel, we explore whether it is possible to love our enemies, as Jesus admonishes us to do. What might it look like to love our enemies in 2017?

This sermon looks at why Jesus intensifies the laws in the Sermon on the Mount. The law is not to be followed for the law's sake, but for our sake. The law was given to help us to live in relationship, to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Lesson: Matthew 4:12-23: This sermon explores how we are called to "be" - to be beloved children of God and to understand the sacredness of all our fellow human beings and all of God's creation - before we are called to "do" - to act in response to this amazing love.