Go Into All the World: A Meditation on Matthew 28

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, 

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the 

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things 

whatsoever I have commanded you: 

and, lo, I am with you alway, 

even unto the end of the world. Amen

Christ's greeting and commands after His resurrection at the end of St. Matthew's Gospel have inspired the Church's mission since the day Jesus gave them to His Apostles.  After His crucifixion, many of His disciples had no idea what to do.  Judas Iscariot, realizing he had betrayed innocent blood by treacherously delivering Jesus to the Pharisees, hung himself.  Thomas seems to have lost his faith, and didn't immediately gather with the remaining disciples, who themselves huddled in a dark room, wondering if they were to be the next victims of murderous religious and secular tyrants.  Into this darkness, death, despair, and unbelief, Jesus returned to shine the light of His resurrection and hope upon His people.  The Gospel writers record that He came to them on the third day after His death (Easter Sunday) and continued to bless, teach, and strengthen them in their faith for several weeks until He ascended into Heaven (just before Pentecost).  This concluding section of Mathew's Gospel helps summarize that teaching, and the mission Jesus gave to His disciples before going to sit at the right hand of the Father.

It begins by noting that all divine authority belongs to Jesus as the only begotten Son of the Father, who alone with the Father and Holy Spirit has accomplished the Vicarious Atonement for the salvation of the whole world.  Jesus is not a sectarian god of some small ethnic band, but rather the God and Savior of every person in every corner of the world.  His blood was shed and He suffered death not just for His own resurrection glory, nor just to save a subset of the Jews, but rather that all people from the dawn of time to the end of time might have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation He won for them on Calvary.  His authority is universal because He is the One True God, and there is no other false god who can stand before Him.  Jesus' Gospel is universal because He is universal, and His work of salvation was universal as well.

From this universal authority, Jesus gave His global command to make disciples of the whole world, baptizing them in the Name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, and teaching the people of every tribe and race everything He had taught His disciples.  This charge the Church has kept for nearly 2000 years by preserving the writings of the Old Testament Prophets and the New Testament Apostles, living from Christ's Word and teaching Christ's Word through their witness.  The Apostles themselves went from Jerusalem to Asia (Thomas planted the church in India which still remains to this day), throughout the Mediterranean basin (the church Mark founded in Egypt remains to this day, as do churches founded by the other Apostles throughout Southern Europe) and even into Spain-- all without violence or coercion of any kind, but alone by the power of the Word and Spirit of Christ.  Their successors made disciples by baptizing and teaching ever further afield, until our own times, when there is scarcely any corner of the globe which has not had the Gospel brought to it in its own language and idiom.  Comforted and secure in Jesus' concluding promise that He would remain with them even unto the end of the world, the people of Christ took His Word into all the world, and the Holy Spirit worked through that Word to create saving faith and reconciliation with the Father.  Emerging from that divine work is the ever growing Church of Christ, her ranks swelling with the broken, the abused, the oppressed, the discarded, the abandoned, and the dying, who receive from Jesus mercy, compassion, love, forgiveness, healing, and eternal life in His Name.

This is not to say that Christians have always lived up to the high calling of Christ and His Word, and there are certainly times in history we can look back on in shame-- not that Christ or His Word was ever unfaithful, but that the sinners He saved by His grace sometimes fell back into their sinful ways, and did shameful things in His Name.  But the Word of Christ continues to call all people to repentance and faith both inside and outside the Church, because the saving Gospel of Jesus reaches out to every soul universally.  Just as there is no way to hide from the Word of Christ in the world, there is no way to hide from it in the Church-- His Law continues to convict all people of their sin and need for a Savior, while His Gospel continues to reveal that Savior as Jesus Christ.  This universal Word of salvation, sent to bring all people to faith and repentance that they might live forever by grace through faith in Christ alone, is the Eternal Word which shall endure beyond time itself.  This Word of Christ has with it Christ's own promise and His own presence, that whoever will confess their sins, believe and be baptized shall be saved, knit together into Him for all eternity, sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This family, this Church, woven together by the blood of Christ and alive by grace through faith in Jesus, who abide in His Word and carry it into all the world, is the ongoing fulfillment of Jesus' command and promise in Matthew 28.  This Church does not belong to any state or government, to any ethnicity or tribe or language, though it does reach out to embrace them all.  It does not belong to Rome, or Constantinople, or Cairo, or Augsburg, or Canterbury, or Geneva, though it permeates every fellowship where the faithful in Christ are found.  This universal, catholic Church cannot be made into a sect or schism, because Christ and His Word cannot be torn asunder-- though we have seen those who tear themselves away from Christ and His Word through their own pride, wickedness, and unbelief.  This universal salvation by our universal God makes brothers and sisters of us all, calling everyone to the same eternal life in the same Savior, by the same Eternal Word.  This is the fulfillment of the universal promise made to Eve in the Garden that of her seed would arise one to triumph over sin, death, hell, and the devil; the fulfillment of the universal promise to Abraham that through his descendants all the world would be blessed; the fulfillment of the universal promise to the Prophets that whoever would turn and believe in the Lord would be saved; the universal promise of Jesus spoken from His Cross that His work of salvation is finished.

This is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church which Christ founded by His Word and Spirit, bought by His blood, and sent out into all the world to preach the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation in His Name to every people.  This is our universal fellowship, our universal bond, founded, sustained, and preserved forever in Jesus.  Hear His universal Word come to you, that you may be reconciled to God and your neighbor in the love, peace, and compassion He has given to you through His Son-- and then by His Spirit, carry that saving, universal Word everywhere the Lord sends you in this world, that everyone you encounter may hear, believe, and live.  Amen.