Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
28:16-20)
Now the
eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed
them. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus
came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of
the age.
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In the creed
when we talk about the church, it comes in the section about the Holy Spirit.
We say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church. The
church is the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the one who
brings the church together. When we hear the Word of God in the church, this is
the Holy Spirit speaking to us with his own voice. The Holy Spirit is teaching
us about Jesus, pointing us to Jesus, showing Jesus to us, directing our ears,
our eyes, our hearts to Jesus. And Jesus himself breathes out the Holy Spirit
upon his Church.
Once I saw
on above a door on the way out from a church: “Jesus has done his work, now
it’s time to do you work”. This is complete rubbish. Sure—Jesus always gives us
a job to do, but Jesus’ work is not finished. His work on the cross is
finished—he said: It is finished—but his work in praying for and leading
his church is not finished. He is still working in the church. He is still
visiting each church, and each home, like a wonderful faithful shepherd,
tending each sheep, and looking after them, guiding them, leading them, and
feeding them with his word and allowing them to drink of the fresh water of the
Holy Spirit.
Wherever the
Word of God is spoken, Jesus himself comes to that place and speaks each word
carefully into our ears himself with his own mouth. And when he does this, he
is always breathing out his Holy Spirit upon us.
We can’t
manipulate God, we can’t manipulate Jesus, we can’t manipulate the Holy Spirit
to do the work that we want to do. It’s God that uses us for his
purposes. St Paul says in Ephesians 2: For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should
walk in them.
One of the
great mysteries of the Holy Spirit is the mystery of work unfinished. Whether
we are a pastor serving a parish or whether we have a family or whether we work
in a certain place or whether we have certain friends, each of us is always
working together with Jesus. And when we are gone, and even when we are dead,
Jesus still continues his work, and sends his Holy Spirit to a new person to
carry on the work that was begun not by us, but by him. We simply join in with
Jesus at whatever stage his work was up to.
Many of us
know what it is to leave our work unfinished: we look back on our lives, and we
think, “What have I really achieved?” “Have I really helped to leave the world
a better place?” We know about all the fighting in Syria, Egypt and South Sudan
at present—people have been killed and left with their work unfinished,
including many Christians, and pastors.
At the time
of the French revolution in 1789, there were some nuns that were taken to be
executed at the guillotine. Apparently, as they were carried to their death,
they sang: “Come Holy Spirit.” These nuns knew that they were nothing—if they
had done anything good, if they had made any contribution for the world, if
they had done any good service in the church, the Holy Spirit is the one who
will continue their good work.
Now, at the
end of Matthew’s Gospel, we read a very well-known passage, where the eleven
disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw [Jesus] they worshipped him, but some doubted.
Jesus here
has gathered together his apostles. These are the men that Jesus is going to
send out into the far corners of the world as the first pastors in his church.
And what is interesting about this passage is that Jesus is not handing over his
work to people like him. Jesus is the only one who is true God and true man in
one person. None of the apostles are God! In fact, they were simply worshippers
of God. It even says that when they worshipped Jesus, that some even doubted.
These were
sinful men that Jesus was about to send. They were wet behind the ears, and
inexperienced, and yet Jesus was happy to send them. He was even happy to send
the apostles out in such a way that the only things that anyone in the future
would ever know about Jesus would come from their preaching and their writings.
What trust Jesus gave to them!
And what
trust Jesus gives to every pastor, whether he is fresh out of seminary, or
entering his last parish after 40 or 50 years of faithful service in the church.
All of us pastors come to our work every day as sinners, as people who look at
the work done yesterday and think just what a failure we have been in God’s
sight, and prepare for the new day waiting for Jesus to use us in a fresh new
way as we speak his word to people. A pastor’s education doesn’t finish at
seminary: every parishioner is a pastor’s teacher, because as St Paul says, to
each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
In the book
of Acts, it says that the apostles devoted themselves to prayer and to the
ministry of the word. I always used to think that these two things were the
other way around: the ministry of the word and then prayer. But it says, first,
prayer and then the ministry of the word. This is because the
ministry of the word is something that can only be done with God’s help and
with his leading, and we pastors need desperately to pray and ask God for help.
You can see
how I learnt this little insight from the word of God. There was a time when I
didn’t know this—and still my flesh works against this. My flesh wants to carry
out the ministry of the word on my own strength without prayer, and without
God’s help. But Jesus knows full well that his pastors don’t know
everything—and just as he saw his eleven disciples there on the mountain, the
twelfth one missing because he had despaired of his life altogether, with all
their doubts, he still sends them out as his messengers and with his blessing.
We read: And
Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them the
observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the
end of the age.
I have often
thought that if I were one of Jesus’ disciples, one of the most difficult
things for me to cope with would have been the fact that Jesus was going away. In
John 14, Jesus says: In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so,
would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that
where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas
said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the
way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me.”
Thomas here doesn’t understand that the fact that Jesus is going away is a good thing. And Jesus is not going away in such a way that he is not with his disciples anymore. He doesn’t leave them alone. But he ascends into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, so that he can be with all Christians everywhere, and walk with them and be with them and comfort them all around the world at the same time. Jesus says: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. How is he going to rule the whole world and the whole of heaven if he is going to stay with the eleven disciples forever and only walk with them? How can the gospel, the good news of his blood, his death and resurrection, go out if Jesus stays with them?
And so,
before Jesus leaves to go to the cross, and to the resurrection, and to go and
sit at the right hand of God, Jesus has to teach his disciples and prepare them
for his departure. He says: Now I am going to him who sent me, and none of
you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to
you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to
your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not
come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Just think:
what a wonderful thing it must have been to be able to see Jesus and walk
around with him and learn from him back then! But at the same time, it is the flesh
that wants to keep Jesus with them. And if they were to force Jesus to stay,
Jesus even says the Holy Spirit would not come to them. What a great mystery
this is!
But back to the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus says: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Even the eleven apostles will not do this work by themselves. The Holy Spirit will gather a twelfth disciple to join together with them: Matthias. And then Jesus himself will appear to St Paul on the road to Damascus and call him. And then there will be others: Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Barnabas, all sorts. And once they are gone, there will be people like St Augustine, St Athanasius, St John Chrysostom, Martin Luther, and all kinds of famous people and not very famous people throughout Christian history, until Jesus brings the history of the world to an end. Jesus doesn’t send these apostles out as lone rangers, but he sends them out together as instruments of the Holy Spirit. As St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3: What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
And then
there is the great mystery, those wonderful words that Jesus speaks to them: And
behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. What a wonderful thing
it must have been to be in Peter, or Andrew, or John’s congregation! What a
wonderful thing it must have been to listen to St Paul! But even these
pastors never promised to be with their churches and congregations always
to the end of the age. Jesus knows full well that none of these men will be
alive on this earth until the end of the age. And Jesus himself never asks a
pastor to serve a parish or a congregation always until the end of the age.
Only he can do this, because only he is true man and true God. Only Jesus can
do this, because he always wants his Christians to serve and follow him.
The church is never gathered around this or that building, or this or that
pastor, but around Jesus Christ, the living Lord of the church. Jesus says: Behold,
I am with you always, to the end of the age. Jesus is the one who sends
this or that pastor to a church in the first place, and he is the one who sends
other ones after they are gone.
There’s a
wonderful passage in Acts 8, where Philip the evangelist sits in a chariot
together with a soldier from Ethiopia, a eunuch in the service of Queen
Candace. And they sit together and read the prophet Isaiah, they talk about it,
Philip teaches and educates the Ethiopian man. Eventually, the Holy Spirit
works through the Word of God in the Ethiopian man’s heart, and says: See,
here is water! What prevents me from being baptised? He has heard Philip
preach to him about baptism and all the good things that come from it. He has
heard that Jesus promises to be with his baptised people always until the end
of the age, and so he wants to receive this gift as well.
We read: And
he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip
and the eunuch, and he baptised him. And when they came up out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and
went on his way rejoicing.
See how the
Spirit of the Lord carries Philip away. Even if the Ethiopian wanted to learn
more from Philip, and even if Philip enjoyed his conversations with the
Ethiopian, Philip’s ministry to him was now finished, and the Spirit of the
Lord had other plans for him. And we read about the Ethiopian: The eunuch
saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
Why did he
rejoice? Wasn’t he sad to lose his friend, Philip? No, he rejoiced because
Jesus never lies. Jesus has never lied before, and will never lie in the
future. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He was the same
when he spoke to Moses was with him in the thick darkness. And he was the same
when he beamed with wonderful heavenly light at the transfiguration. He was the
same when he was dying of the cross and he was the same Jesus when he rose from
the dead. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Jesus is the First and
the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. Jesus is the Lord
of his church, and he says: Behold, I, I, I am with you always, until the very
end of the age.
Amen.
Lord Jesus
Christ, we thank you for the many gifts you have given to us over the last five
years. We thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit among us. We pray now that
you would stay with us, and bless all of us with the living water of the Holy
Spirit both now and into the future. Amen.
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