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Each year as we celebrate our Risen Lord on Easter morning, I wonder about what resurrection will mean in the year to come. Christ’s resurrection always means that death is not the final word. Our creator God breathes life into being in the beginning, and the Word of God made flesh shows us how to live as resurrection people, forgiven in love, that we might share the same love in the world. Easter reminds us that God is always making all things new. God is making good, even of the cruelest human actions, and the most desperate human experiences. God is making good, and Jesus lives. For those of us who follow Christ, resurrection changes things.

When Mary Magdalene finds the risen Lord standing before her in the garden that first Easter morning; when the resurrected Jesus visits his disciples and they see for themselves; their understanding of the truth of God’s promise in Christ to be with us in God’s eternal redeeming grace, changes. God’s grace does not change. God breathes life in the beginning, and God breathes life now. But human understanding changes, as God reveals what life means in a new way. And so, each year on Easter, resurrection can mean something new for us. We are invited to consider once again, in a new context, with life experiences as they are right now, how God’s renewing, redeeming, loving grace is making good around us and inviting us to join in and to bear witness.

Followers of Jesus in the early days after his resurrection certainly offered witness in community by sharing that they had seen the risen Lord, and by continuing to tell the stories of his healings, teachings, and presence among the marginalized. The word of God’s love through Jesus has carried and grown for two thousand years. But bearing witness to Christ’s resurrection and to the promise of life in Christ, also means living an active, intentional faith, not only in word, but in deed. We bear witness to Christ’s light by sharing it with others through acts of kindness, service, and neighborly love.

The Bible offers us letters, many of which are written by the Apostle Paul during the formation of the early church, not long after Jesus’ resurrection. In one of those letters, when Paul addresses the people of Colossae, those people are struggling to find unity in their practices and understandings of faith. Sorting out how to live a Christian life in light of Christ’s resurrection is the work of generations. The struggles then may be similar to the struggles we know now… struggles to find ways to be a community which cares for the whole body in an understanding of Jesus’ boundless and ever-expanding love. The question of what Christ’s resurrection means and how it changes things for our lives moving forward is not new.

Paul’s words in Colossians 3 proclaim that the people of Colossae are holy and loved… and that because of this, they are called to share such love. He suggests that out of God’s love comes compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness. These are in fact attributes of Jesus, and attributes God’s people are called to “put on,” or to be “clothed” in. Approaching life in community clothed in compassion and kindness, for instance, bears witness to Christ’s redeeming love because Jesus is clothed in these things. Jesus embodies humility and forgiveness, so when we do the same, we bear witness to Christ. With our actions, as we share love in community and among our neighbors, we point to Christ and the ways that his resurrection changes us. And we do this in the context of the lives we live now, in whatever roles we are blessed to hold. For me this is as a pastor, as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor, a resident of Washington, NC, a member of the United Methodist Church, and many other ways I live out my life and God’s calling.

I love this letter from Paul because it gives us an actual image of what it looks like to wear the Spirit of Christ on the outside in ways that can be seen and experienced in the world. It does not name attributes like male, female, old, young, brown skin, white skin, rich or poor. In fact, no matter what barriers we imagine ahead or feel bound by, these things supersede. I can find ways to bear witness to Christ’s love in every facet of my life, among every neighbor and beloved child of God, and in all of the ways I care for the gifts of creation.

Compassion is a response of one child of God, to the life experience of another child of God in ways that offer understanding and grace and a hope for justice as Christ would hope… and compassion looks the same no matter who wears it. Kindness is an extension of Christ’s active love which offers grace and mercy to even those whom society deems unworthy, without expectation of a return, and without requiring receipts… and kindness looks the same no matter who wears it. And we can go on with Paul’s list… humility, meekness, and patience… putting others before self as Jesus embodied in the most perfect ways, looks like putting others before self no matter who embodies them.

All these attributes look the same no matter who wears them, because they look like the love of Jesus. And if Christ’s resurrection changes us, it is indeed in ways that encourage us to grow as ones who bear witness to God’s love as an Easter people who remember Jesus’ teachings. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, serve one another, and remember him. If we do these things, we bear witness with our own lives, to the life, resurrection, and redeeming presence of Christ. We bear witness to the love of a God who makes all things good.

Paul’s call to unity here is a call to living and being like Christ, and in and through this commitment to discipleship, knowing what it means to participate in the movement of God and in a renewed and resurrected life. It is indeed unity in Christ, which strengthens the foundation of love already given and both offers and calls the people to a life of peace. It is a call to be Christians in all that we do, from inside our hearts, in ways that show on the outside. Clothing ourselves in Christ’s love is an intentional way of being, and one I hope we Christians choose in all we do.

As a people of faith, who joyfully celebrated the resurrection of Christ and God’s absolute redeeming grace once again on Easter Sunday, what does resurrection mean right now? How will we bear witness to Christ’s love (compassion, humility, gentleness, and kindness) in both words and actions in this particular time and context? It is my hope that Christ’s resurrection indeed changes things for those who believe and for those who hunger, that the world might bear witness to God’s love.

Cassidy Salter is the pastor at Ware’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Washington.