Rev. Joel Winckler, who currently serves at St. Paul's UMC in Jamestown, North Dakota, and will serve as the Northwest District superintendent for the Dakotas Conference beginning on July 1, 2020, shares a pastoral message of new life in resurrection. 

Two thousand years ago, the world awakened to a new reality. 

Nobody knew it at the time, but it was about to change the world forever! Jesus Christ was raised from the dead! From only a few followers of Jesus, the message would begin to spread to almost every corner of the earth. And this message of resurrection life continues to spread today.

Jesus’ resurrection made possible all future resurrections. Since Jesus was brought back from the dead and resurrected to a glorified life, so too will we, as His followers, have new life to look forward to when we die. But this life doesn’t wait until then! We begin to see transformed lives now. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are all made truly alive in this life first.

I know transformed lives aren’t technically or theologically resurrections, but they do point to something about God’s nature of restoration and making things new. Even during all the uncertainty of our world in the grip of a pandemic, we trust God’s work of making things new. Our world, our churches, and our relationships are all being reshaped because they must be. Look for where God may be, making them new and healthier. Are we allowing God’s transforming work to be done for the long term?

In the scriptures and life, we see again and again how God is the one who enjoys making people new. He transforms events and lives so dramatically that it seems like a literal resurrection from our human perspective.

Colossians 2:6-15, NLT version, speaks of new life in this way,

⁶ And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. ⁷ Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

⁸ Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. ⁹ For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. ¹⁰ So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹¹ When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. ¹² For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him, you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

¹³ You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. ¹⁴ He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Yesterday, the Bismarck-Mandan United Methodist Community Worship service was broadcast.  View the service here. We saw and heard about lives forever changed and transformed by the power of Jesus’ life in them! That’s what resurrection power is all about! It was wonderful to hear the witness of lives changed forever because of Jesus. Please take the time to watch the recording of it. It will bless your life. It did mine. Hallelujah!