What I want to do this morning is to take you through the Gospel of the day, Matthew 28:16-20. No more, no less. And it’s not going to be original – I’m simply summarising a very rich commentary by a scholar named George Montague.

This passage is of key importance in understanding the Gospel of Matthew (and indeed the Christian Gospel itself).
o It’s the conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew, and in some ways the climax.
o It draws together all its major themes.
o It proclaims that something new opens up for both Jesus and the disciples in the new age opened by the Resurrection of Jesus.

Every word counts.

v 16.  The disciples are ‘the eleven disciples’. This is a reminder of the absence of Judas the traitor. Unlike John’s Gospel, Matthew doesn’t mention the physical wounds of Jesus. But here is the wound of betrayal.
            The disciples go to ‘Galilee’. This brings the conclusion of the Gospel back to its birthplace, which will now serve as the launching pad for the mission to all the nations. (In 4:25 there’s the reference to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, a place where the Jewish and Gentile worlds met.) So the Gospel ministry begins and ends in Galilee.
            ‘to the mountain’.  In the command Jesus gave through the women (28:10) there was no mention of a mountain. And we don’t know which actual mountain is being referred to. But ‘the mountain’ is of great symbolic importance for Matthew.
– In 4:9, on a mountain, Jesus had been tempted by the devil to accept an offer of all the kingdoms of the earth. But Jesus had rejected that temptation, and now, on a mountain it’s revealed that His obedience to His Father’s will has resulted in his exercising ‘all authority in heaven and on earth’ (v18) – conferred not by the Satan but by God the Father. 
– In chapters 5-7, on ‘the mountain’, Jesus, the new Moses, had proclaimed the new Law. Here on this mountain, (28:20) He will order it to be taught.
– On the mountain of Transfiguration Jesus was revealed to Peter, James and John as the Son of God and the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. Now this mountain becomes the place of victory, revelation, proclamation and commissioning.

The disciples see Jesus. Here Matthew does not refer to Him as ‘the Lord’ (used throughout the Gospel), nor ‘the Son of Man’ (used in chapters 24-26), nor ‘the Son of God’ (used in chapter 27). But simply ‘Jesus’. Why ‘Jesus’? Because Matthew wants to underline the fact that the Risen figure the disciples see is indeed the same Jesus they knew in the public ministry before the Resurrection.

v 17  ‘they fell prostrate before him’ or ‘worshipped him’ (as the disciples did when they had seen him walking on the water). Even so ‘they were doubtful’ or ‘some of them were doubtful’ (the Greek can be translated either way).  Surprising? Is it possible for some or all of the disciples to ‘doubt’ at a moment like this? Yes – ‘doubt’ in the sense that they wavered between trust in Jesus’ power and trembling at their own weakness, so well dramatised by Peter’s earlier desire to walk on the water coupled with his ‘doubt’ when he saw the wind and the waves.  Discipleship for Matthew isn’t one long continuous rapture. It’s a mixture of light and darkness, power and weakness, faith and doubt.

v 18. ‘Jesus then came up…to them’. This has elements foreshadowing the final coming in glory of the Son of Man. When Jesus ‘comes’ it is always significant.
           ‘He said, “Full authority in heaven and on earth has been committed to me.” The most significant word is ‘full’. Jesus had certainly shown His authority during His ministry in teaching (9:6), in forgiveness of sins (7:28-29), in miracles and exorcisms (12:24-28). Even so, He said that during His public ministry His authority was limited to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (10:6; 15:24). Now, by virtue of His resurrection, full authority in heaven and earth is given Him, ‘in heaven’ – He is the final judge (25:31-46) - and ‘on earth’ – this authority will be exercised through the Church, especially the apostles (16:19; 18:18). But when that happens, it’s really Jesus exercising His universal authority through the Church which He continues to be with.

v. 19. ‘…therefore…’  Because Jesus has this universal authority, now the time has come to go to the whole world and not just to Israel.
‘go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples’. The emphasis falls on ‘make disciples’. The Greek reads literally, ‘going, make disciples’. This is a particularly ‘Matthew’ term. He spends his whole Gospel defining what it means to be ‘a disciple’. It is
– to follow Jesus
– to share His life-style and His table
– to listen to His word
– to accept it and live by it
– to share His mission
– to accompany Him through the storm
– to learn to live in community with other disciples
– to forgive and be reconciled
– to bear public witness to Jesus
– to make other disciples.

‘Making other disciples’ will be a process similar to the one by which Jesus made the first disciples. It will take time, it will take instruction and a period of formation. (This fits in well with out understanding of the catechumenate, the catechumenal process.) And it will never be finished in this lifetime. Thus, for Matthew, the mission is more than ‘preaching the Gospel to the whole of creation’ (as it is in Mark 16:15). It’s a lifetime of spiritual formation as well. What’s sometimes called ‘the Great Commission’ is not fulfilled by simply bringing people to initial faith in Christ.

‘Make all nations my disciples’. The Greek words ‘ta ethne’ (literally ‘the nations’) could mean ‘the Gentiles’. But Matthew is being more subtle than that. The reference in v 15 to ‘the Jews’ is the first reference in Matthew’s Gospel to ‘the Jews’-  apart from on the lips of Gentiles. For Matthew, the Jewish people are no longer ‘Israel’, the People of God, for as a nation they had rejected their Messiah, and they are now simply one of the nations – ‘ta ethne’ of the earth. But they too are still to be offered the Good News, by the New Israel, the New People of God, the Christian Church, who are not to turn their backs on God’s ancient people.

Jesus, who during His public ministry had limited His activity and that of His disciples to Israel, now repeals that limitation and sends His disciples to all the nations.

v.19  ‘baptizing them’  (‘everywhere’ does not appear in the Greek original). The initiation of all new disciples is to take place through baptism. Baptism replaced circumcision as the rite by which one enters the new People of God. (Though there was a debate about this in the Early Church and Jewish Christians seem to have continued to practise both; some even do so today.)

Do you understand your own baptism to have been your initiation as a ‘disciple’? You and I are ourselves ‘disciples’.

‘in the name of the Father and  the Son and  the Holy Spirit.’ Baptism in the name of the Trinity. The Acts of the Apostles records converts being baptised ‘in the name of Jesus’ (Acts 2:38; 10:48; 19:5). But no precise formula is prescribed in the New Testament apart from this one.

‘and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you’. Jesus had sent His disciples out on an earlier mission, but not to teach, ‘only’ to proclaim the Kingdom, to cast out demons and to heal the sick. Not to teach. Jesus Himself hadn’t then completed His teaching. And it was only in the light of His death and resurrection that the disciples could properly understand what they had been taught. So now, now they are commanded to take His teaching to the entire world.

And they’re not to water down His teaching. The new disciples are to be taught all His commands and taught to obey them all. Especially (presumably), the Sermon on the Mount, where the demands of discipleship are set out.

But Jesus doesn’t expect His disciples to do it alone. Hence the next words: the promise ‘And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time.’ At the end of the Gospel as at the beginning ((1:23), Jesus is ‘Emmanuel’, ‘God with us’.

Yet it’s tied to the command to go and the command to live the word of Jesus. This means two things:

1. The Church will continue to experience the presence of Jesus to the extent that she is missionary. Jesus promises that as the disciples go He will be with them. He is mercifully silent about whether or not He will be with them if they do not go. Yet the Church that ceases to be missionary ceases to be the Church of Jesus.

2. The high demands of Jesus – the righteousness that must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20) – is not an ‘impossible dream’. Jesus doesn’t expect any of His disciples to walk his or her walk alone. It’s the presence and the power of Jesus that makes the walk possible. Paul speaks of ‘grace’ or ‘the Holy Spirit’ as making the walk possible. For Matthew, the abiding presence of Jesus is grace. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus leaves His Church through the Ascension in order to send the Holy Spirit to empower the disciples. But in Matthew there is no Ascension; Jesus does not leave His Church. By His Resurrection He has entered the Church as a permanent spiritual presence. ‘And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time’.

I finish with the final words of Montague in his commentary on Matthew:
‘To find Jesus in our daily life, therefore, we need only strive to live his word in the company of other disciples, and to carry that word to those who have not heard it. In the very process of doing so, we will discover Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, glorious Son of God, and coming Son of man, as our Emmanuel, our Companion God’.

I find these words challenging, but incredibly reassuring and comforting.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on 18 May 2008, by the Revd Canon Peter Stuart

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