As our month of reflecting on living as Easter people comes to an end, we know that our time of actually living as Easter people will continue. For we are still waiting for Christ’s return.

Though the effects of sin still harm and damage our world, we can live each day in the confidence and hope of knowing that God loves us and will never leave us. God is love, and his love is perfect, true, and good. We continue to persevere through struggles and trials, leaning into God, growing in our relationship with him through the Holy Spirit, wrestling with the difficult tensions in the world, and letting God lead us by his love. And even as we wait with expectancy and cry out for Christ to come again soon, we seek to live in all the joy, power, and freedom that the resurrection offers. The instructions Christ gave to those first witnesses remain the same for all who claim the resurrection today: “Go and tell the good news that Jesus is alive!” (see Matthew 28:7, 19).

Remembering with joy that “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” let us give thanks and praise the Lord for all he has done: “To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”