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Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
As Easter fades into the rear-view mirror for us and the busyness of life consumes us, my heart is challenged with this question: So, what difference does Easter weekend make in my life and my world, today and going forward?
I believe the close friends of Jesus were wrestling with that very same question in the days and weeks after that shocking Passover/Easter weekend which changed the world. As the thousands of visitors, who had come to Jerusalem for Passover, headed home, most of them had no idea what happened to Jesus that weekend!
Matthew tells us the women who had gone to the tomb early that Sunday morning had been shocked by an angel who told them Jesus was resurrected, and the tomb was open and empty as evidence. But of course, an empty tomb does not prove a resurrection, does it? So, the women had left that empty tomb joyful, but I’m sure confused… until they encountered the resurrected Jesus Himself.
Jesus had said these words to the women that early morning: “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see Me.” (Matt. 28:1-10)
Yesterday we looked at the disciple John’s account of the Sunday evening gathering which brought resurrected Jesus and Thomas together one week AFTER Resurrection Day. Matthew tells us the friends of Jesus did as Jesus had instructed the women, and they returned to their homes up north in Galilee, we presume after that Sunday evening with Thomas.
Over the next few weeks, Jesus did meet, several times, with His disciples there in Galilee, as He had promised the women. Matthew records one of those encounters as the closing event of his Gospel recounting of the story of Jesus. Matthew writes: “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted.” (Matt. 28:16,17) It’s a brief but very powerful statement, isn’t it?
Did you notice Matthew records ’11 disciples’? Why 11? Because you’ll recall Judas the betrayer had killed himself, overwhelmed by the shame of betraying Jesus to those who were determined to kill Jesus! (Matt. 27:1-5) Did you notice the disciples seemed to know exactly where to meet Jesus?
While Matthew doesn’t tell us, I suspect it was the same hillside outside Capernaum, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus had preached His first, major, public sermon, often called the ‘Sermon on the mount’, which Matthew records for us in Matt. 5,6,7. From that hillside vantage point, they could look down not only on Galilee Lake and shoreline, but on the towns of Capernaum, Tiberias and maybe Bethsaida, all of which held wonderful memories of the months Jesus and His disciples had spent together. This was home to many of these disciples.
Did you also notice in Matthew’s statement that “When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some doubted.”? What do you suppose it means that some of those 11 disciples DOUBTED? What did they doubt? I think they doubted what their entire journey as a disciple of Jesus had been all about!
Obviously, their future was now going to be very different from what they had anticipated during the days when Jesus was so famous, doing so many miracles and always present with them. Now, following His death, burial and resurrection, none of them knew what the future would hold for them. Should they all return to their former jobs or find new ones and just get on with life?They also didn’t know what Jesus’ plans were for His future?
While it was very difficult for these men who’d been with Jesus for several months to really believe Jesus had died and was resurrected, they had already experienced two Sunday evening gatherings with resurrected Jesus proving the impossible was true. But the problem for these men was they didn’t understand what the resurrection of Jesus MEANT for them or their future!?
That prompts me to ask myself and you this question: ‘How does the resurrection of Jesus Christ affect the remainder of your life and mine here on this earth?’ Matthew may have been particularly concerned about this because surely, he could not return to his tax collecting life!
Resurrected Jesus answered this pressing question of life purpose for Matthew and all the 11 disciples that day. Matthew records these words which Jesus spoke: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” (Matt. 28:18,19)
I think Jesus paused right there to let those commissioning words sink in as they sat together on that familiar hillside looking out over Lake Galilee.
Jesus had many times proven His power and authority over all things by His miracles. Several of these disciples had hoped Jesus would use that power to re-establish the Kingdom of Israel in regional prominence as it had been 1000 years before with King Solomon. Clearly that was not God’s plan nor Jesus’ intent. Suddenly, with only a few words, Jesus answered their most pressing questions of WHAT this journey with Jesus had been all about and WHAT their life purpose was now?
For these 11 men the journey with Jesus had been for them to learn everything they could about Jesus and God’s Redemptive Purpose in this world. I’m sure each man suddenly felt they had wasted too much of their time with Jesus by NOT paying closer attention; or asking more questions of Jesus! But there was no going back to regain lost opportunities. Jesus was now commissioning these men to do with others what He had done with them.
But HOW? Two words: MAKE DISCIPLES!! Their life purpose, for the rest of their earthly lives, was to tell their story of these months with Jesus to as many people as would hear them. WHY? To be sure the people understood WHO Jesus is… God the Son incarnate; and WHAT His earthly visit was all about… drawing people to a sin-forgiven relationship with God made possible only by Jesus’ death and resurrection!!
Can you imagine the sudden, overwhelming sense of insecurity, inferiority, inadequacy that they all felt? Perhaps some thought about running off that hillside, jumping into a boat and resuming their fisherman life. But none of them ran that day! And Matthew tells us Jesus said one more very important thing: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) Oh now that makes all the difference, doesn’t it!?
Jesus was NOT abandoning them! Jesus would somehow be WITH them, helping them to live the rest of their lives with “Jesus given purpose”! Perhaps they remembered that in the upper room that Passover evening Jesus had promised He would ask the Father and the Holy Spirit would be sent to live IN each of them to GUIDE them and TEACH them and EMPOWER them to live this “Jesus given purpose” with confidence and courage! (John 14:16,17,26; 16:13)
I would guess that hillside conversation went on for a long time. For these 11 men, they were each receiving the ‘marching orders’, their “Jesus given purpose” for the rest of their lives. In that moment NONE of them could begin to imagine what their lives would be like, but for all of them their greatest value in this world would be representing Jesus everywhere they went, with every word they spoke and everything they did!
Now wait a minute… isn’t that your life purpose and mine, if we claim a relationship with the resurrected Jesus? So let’s sit with Jesus and these 11 and think about how that “Jesus given purpose” is to be seen in us, everyday, wherever we live in our world… as we worship with this song, and I’ll meet you back here again tomorrow:
Today’s Scripture: Matt. 28:16-20.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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