For many people, to be a witness of Jesus Christ means testifying to a single historical individual, a Jewish teacher who lived in first century Palestine and was executed under the Roman Empire. That figure is central to Christianity, and his life and teachings matter. But when the meaning of Christ is confined only to that one male body in one slice of history, something vast becomes narrow.

The word “Christ” does not function primarily as a last name. It comes from the Greek Christos, meaning “anointed one,” which translates the Hebrew Messiah. In the New Testament, especially in the writings attributed to Paul the Apostle, “Christ” often names a reality that exceeds a single biography. Paul speaks of the “body of Christ,” of Christ “in you,” of a cosmic dimension in which “all things hold together.” The Prologue of the Gospel of John goes even further, describing the Logos through whom all things were made, a light that enlightens everyone coming into the world.

Within that wider frame, Jesus of Nazareth becomes not the exclusive container of divinity but the decisive revelation of what divinity always already is. He does not hoard the presence of God; he unveils it. He embodies, with unusual clarity and fidelity, what it looks like when a human life is transparent to the divine ground. In that sense, he is archetypal rather than merely exceptional.

When “Christ” is reduced to one historical male who alone bears the divine, it can easily harden into tribalism. My Christ versus yours. My savior versus your false prophet. But when Christ is understood as the living presence of God expressing itself in and through all reality, then witnessing to Christ becomes something far more radical and far less sectarian. It becomes recognizing and affirming the sacred depth in every person.

This does not erase the historical Jesus. It situates him. He stands as a luminous instance of what is possible when ego loosens and the divine life flows unobstructed. In that encounter, the small self does indeed “die,” symbolized by crucifixion, and what remains is participation in a larger life, symbolized by resurrection or reincarnation. That pattern need not be limited to one century or one culture. If God is truly infinite, then divine self-expression cannot be confined to a single body.

To witness Christ, in this more expansive sense, is not merely to point backward to one figure in history. It is to perceive and testify to the divine presence animating the world now. It is to see that the same Life that burned in Jesus also breathes in your neighbor, in your adversary, and especially in yourself. It is to live in a way that makes that hidden radiance visible.

Such a vision does not flatten differences or dissolve the uniqueness of Jesus. Rather, it deepens the meaning of incarnation. God is not a distant being among beings but the very depth of Being itself, continuously pouring into form, every form. The scandal is not that God became human once. The greater scandal is that God is always becoming human, in every face, in every moment, in every thing and being.

To bear witness to Christ, then, is to awaken to that reality and to embody it. It is to live as though Love, forgiveness, and self-giving are not moral add-ons but revelations of what we most truly are. In that light, Christ is not only someone we believe in. Christ is the living mystery we participate in and fundamentally are, here and now. Christ is you and me.