Can We Still Doubt in the Face of The Great Commission?

 To You Who Are Beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

 This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and our passage is Matthew 28: 16-20, the Great Commission.  It is here where the language of the Trinity is drawn together most clearly:

 ¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

             For all the depth of purpose included in the Great Commission, three little words always pop at me, from verse 17, “but some doubted”.  The simplest explanation (to me) is that this is a nod to the Gospel of John, where the story of the Doubter, Thomas, is related. 

So why insert this little hiccup in the grand finale of the Gospel of Matthew?  Is it simply a nod, an homage, or is it something else?

Is it a reminder?  Is it a reminder that, as the grand sweeping vision is laid out by Jesus in these few verses, that we are still human?  And it is a grand, sweeping vision. 

 Go and make disciples of ALL nations.

Baptize them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!!

          Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you!!

And, you are not alone, for I am with you always, to the end…

          But, what if it gets hard?  What if I don’t know what I am doing?  I got love and I got faithfulness but…  What if the going gets tough?  Because it does.  Here’s an excerpt from Paul’s Resume of Suffering from 2 Corinthians 11:24-25: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I was stoned...”  (I have never heard this called a Resume of Suffering but it powerfully fits).

          So, maybe these three little words are included as more than a nod or an homage.  Maybe they are included as an “Easter egg”, like in the movies.  In the movies, an ‘Easter egg’ is a reference to another movie or scene or something that the director is honoring.  One of my favorites is in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars are hieroglyphics in the underground temple in Egypt.

          So, maybe, when someone is living into the Great Commission and things have gotten tough, when there are serious bumps in the road, nothing seems to be going right, disappointment and doubt have settled in…  Remember this Easter egg.  It takes us to the Supreme Doubter.  And it walks us through how Jesus worked with him.

          It is a visual of Easter.  Jesus’ resurrection body, wounds healed BUT present.  Jesus present and transformed.  Jesus up from the grave, in fulfillment of all the promises made about grace and salvation and forgiveness and eternity.  But, more profoundly, THE reminder that even death was overcome by our Lord.  All to remind poor Thomas to believe. 

          The work is getting hard?  The Great Commission feels more like a Great Weight around the neck?  Go back to the Doubter, who had to see and touch to confess, “My Lord and My God!”

          Read again what Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen Me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

          That’s us.  Reminded of where the blessings truly come from.  Where the strength truly comes from.  Where the renewal truly comes from.  In the Triune God.

          God the Father and Creator, who is not just THE power in the Universe, but THE Maker of the Universe.  In Jesus Christ who did the work we are not able to, in perfect obedience, dying and rising again to fulfill the promise of a gift given to us all.  In the Holy Spirit, who is Jesus in our hearts.  As Jesus says to conclude the Commission, “and I am with you, till the end of the age.”

 

Pastor Pete