This morning’s homily will be a teaching moment, an instructional homily, that I hope will help to illuminate one of the difficult doctrines of the Christian Church, one that is difficult not just for us, but that was challenging in the earliest centuries of the Church - sufficiently challenging as to foster assorted heresies and schisms that required the attention of several ecumenical councils before a broad consensus was possible. 

Our former rector at Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest used to start out his sermon every Trinity Sunday by saying that it was the only Sunday in the entire liturgical calendar that commemorates a doctrine rather than a person or an event. I suppose that he may have been right in a manner of speaking, but not really quite right: what he said was more amusing and attention-getting than accurate. Trinity Sunday, in one sense, commemorates a Person more than any other Sunday. It commemorates God, God in Three Persons, the blessed Trinity. It commemorates a mystery, to be sure; but the mystery has everything to do with the Godhead Whom we worship. And while many people might stay home if the preacher announced in advance that he would be explicating a mysterious doctrine next Sunday morning, some visitors might actually come if word got around that he was going to explain in plain terms the mystery of the Trinity. At the least it could stir up some curiosity.

I would love to think that by the time you leave this morning you will fully comprehend the doctrine of the Trinity and rush out to write everything down and convey it to all your friends, Christian or not. But this will not happen. The most I can hope for is that you will go away having thought more deeply about the Trinity and having come at least a little closer to understanding why it is absolutely at the center of a Christian understanding of Who God is, how God acts and how He relates to us both corporately and individually. Two traditional ways of visualizing the Trinity are the triangle and the three concentric circles (see below).

Backing up a lot, in the OT there are two names of God that occur with greater frequency than any other: the Hebrew 4-letter name that we call the tetragrammaton and that Christians generally pronounce as Yahweh or Jehovah or simply Lord (though it would be less confusing if we could reserve “Lord” for the Hebrew word Adonai), and the word commonly translated as “God,” which in Hebrew is Elohim, the first name for God that appears in the Bible: Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.” 

It is very important to recognize that the name Elohim is plural, as is also the name Adonai. There are a variety of possible explanations for why this is the case. One is the rather unsatisfactory syncretistic idea that ancient pagans worshiped many gods and so, too, must have the ancient Hebrews, a theory that cannot begin to explain the almost fierce monotheism of Judaism. Another is the thought that Elohim is simply the plural of divine majesty, sort of analogous to the “royal we” used by many monarchs of the past. But a third idea is that God has existed eternally in a plurality of being that suggests internal fellowship and economic division of labor within the Godhead. This last understanding is essential to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and it is the very thing that absolves Christianity from the charge of being tritheistic. 

The devout Jew recites the Shema from Deuteronomy 6 every single day, both morning and evening: it begins with these 6 words: Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echad (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”). But of these very Hebrew words, 4 out of 6, including the word for “one,” echad, all admit of plurality: both Adonai and Elohenu are plural to start with, and echad, to give just one obvious example out of many in Hebrew, is the word used in Genesis 2:24: “And they” (referring to a married couple) “will become one flesh” (basar echad). Obviously this is the ideal that God desired when he created humans: plurality in unity. 

In Genesis 1:27 we read the familiar words, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” But in the bond of marriage, the two become “echad,” bringing them even closer to the image of the God in Whom plurality is embedded in His very nature. After all, in the immediately preceding verse, Genesis 1:26, we read, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.’” Matthew Henry, author of one of the most widely read commentaries on the Bible, wrote: 

“God said, Let us make man. Man, when he was made, was to glorify the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Into that great name we are baptized, for to that great name we owe our being.” 

Before God created Eve from Adam, He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Man alone did not fulfill or complete our creation in the image of God. It had to be male and female, two who become one. There had to be plurality in order for there to be fellowship. And fellowship is absolutely fundamental, again, to Who God is and how God acts.

Those who argue against the concept of God being One in Three always point out the absence of one single verse or passage in the Bible that explicit states the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet the NT is full of statements that can be understood in no other way than on the basis of a Trinitarian concept of the Godhead. Obviously the most important of these is what we call “The Great Commission,” given by the resurrected Christ to His disciples, where He tells them to baptize “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). Ambrose of Milan (c.600) pointed out that Jesus said, “In the Name,” not “in the Names.”

Looking briefly at just two other Trinitarian references, in Luke 10:21,22, we read, “At that very time (Jesus) rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, ‘I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.’” And in II Corinthians 13:14 we find one of Paul’s most beautiful and frequently used benedictions: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

It is only when we try to put God in a test tube for an analytical study of His divine Personhood that we exceed the limits of our understanding. Artistic representations of the Trinity can speak to our hearts in profoundly helpful ways; yet they all fall short in various important respects. Let’s look briefly at just three such representations, two of which come from the Orthodox Church. One of the most famous of these icons is actually called, “The Divine Liturgy,” suggesting that all of Christian worship may be summed up in this single image (see below, The Divine Liturgy. Damaskinos, 1579-1584.)

While most icons are anonymous, this one in its original version is attributed to Michael Damaskinos, an artist working in a monastery on Crete about 450 years ago. Barely visible at the top is the Body of Christ, above and below which the words “Divine Liturgy” faintly appear in Greek. Surrounding the representation of the Holy Trinity are all the heavenly hosts, Cherubim and Seraphim, Thrones, Authorities, Dominions, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels. The Body of Christ is literally carried at the top by a quartet of Authorities, and the chalice is being presented to Christ by 5 Dominions. The 6-winged seraphs below the Trinity carry incense burners and censers (thuribles), as well as the books of the St. Chrysostom and St. James liturgies. 

But most important of course is the representation of the Godhead itself. The Father and the Son are seated on a throne behind an altar. Jesus is attended to by the angels who present the chalice and carry His Body. God the Father, as usual in Orthodox iconography, is presented as the Ancient of Days, dressed in the white robe of righteousness. His lower torso is turned to his left, but His head faces Jesus on His right hand, the place of special privilege and authority. Jesus is dressed as a Bishop, representing His relationship to His Church and His function as its High Priest. 

The positioning of the Holy Spirit is of particular significance. The dove is flying towards the Father but is looking back at the Son, suggesting a very intentional compromise on the question of the Procession of the Holy Spirit as articulated in a famous theological document from a monastery on Crete during precisely the same period. Basically, in that Orthodox treatise, the Holy Spirit was said to have proceeded eternally from the Father but temporally from the Son when He promised to send it to his disciples and, by extension, to all believers. Thus according to this view, both the Eastern and Western understandings were true and acceptable without conflict. Damaskinos intentionally represents this compromise in his icon.
  
The second image is one to which I referred in a sermon a few weeks ago. It comes from a 12th century portal of the Basilica of St. Denis on the outskirts of Paris. Here God the Father holds the Son in His arms, or quite literally in His bosom, as the sacrificial Lamb of God, with the Cross appearing directly behind Him. The Holy Spirit once again is represented as a dove, this time hovering over and looking down on the Father and the Son. I personally find this to be one of the most emotionally powerful artistic representations of the Holy Trinity. 

But it shares the same defect as the “Divine Liturgy” of Damaskinos: it can only show the three Persons of the Godhead in their separate manifestations, not in their eternal unity, which, of course, cannot really be imagined much less represented in painting or sculpture. In other words, the Three-in-One must never be defined as separate autonomous Persons even though they may be visualized that way.

The third representation I want to share with you comes again from the Orthodox Church and is among the most famous and widely imitated Trinitarian icons: it is the work of a Russian artist of the 15th century, Andrei Rublev, who died in 1430 and is canonized as a saint in the Orthodox Church. His icon, titled “The Holy Trinity,” has layers and layers of meaning despite the visual simplicity of its first impression. The Church long has interpreted these three angels to be a representation of the Holy Trinity. Rublev was the first iconographer to show them as being equal, both in age and in authority, each bearing an identical staff. Each wears different clothing, the Father’s being indistinct and almost transparent, representing the impossibility of looking directly on His heavenly glory. The Son wears the colors in which He is most often dressed in Orthodox iconography: a reddish-brown undergarment representing earth and His humanity, and a blue cloak representing heaven and His deity. By contrast the Holy Spirit wears the heavenly blue undergarment of deity and a cloak of delicate green, representing life and, in the Orthodox tradition, Pentecost. Above the Father is Abraham’s house, suggestive of the Father’s house; above the Son is the oak of Mamre representing the tree of life and perhaps the Cross; and above the Holy Spirit is a mountain (now only faintly visible), representing our spiritual ascent through the Holy Spirit to what the Orthodox Church calls “theosis.”

Many writers have tried to plumb the depths of meaning in this icon. It is the very first icon presented in Henri Nouwen’s book, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons. Nouwen wrote, “For me the contemplation of this icon has increasingly become a way to enter more deeply into the mystery of divine life while remaining fully engaged in the struggles of our hate-and-fear-filled world.” That was in 1987! He added, “I knew that the house of love I had entered has no boundaries and embraces everyone who wants to dwell there.” 

As for the content of the icon itself, Nouwen writes, “It is the mystery of the three angels who appeared at the Oak of Mamre, who ate the meal Sarah and Abraham generously offered to them and who announced the unexpected birth of Isaac.” 

The story is found in Genesis 18, which begins, "The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My Lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” The passage continues with this same flipping back and forth between plural and singular, “they said, he said, Abraham said ‘Lord,’” etc. This very unexpected alternation of persons is precisely what has given rise to the Church’s understanding of these three persons as representing the Holy Trinity.

Returning to Henri Nouwen’s interpretation of the icon, he wrote: “The tree of Mamre becomes the tree of life, the house of Abraham becomes the dwelling place of God-with-us and the mountain becomes the spiritual heights of prayer and contemplation. The lamb that Abraham offered to the angels becomes the sacrificial Lamb, chosen by God before the creation of the world, led to be slaughtered on Calvary and declared worthy to break the seven seals of the scroll. This sacrificial Lamb forms the center of the icon. The hands of the Father, Son and Spirit reveal in different ways its significance. The Son, in the center, points to it with two fingers, thus indicating His mission to become the sacrificial Lamb, human as well as divine, through the Incarnation. The Father, on the left, encourages the Son with a blessing gesture. And the Spirit, who holds the same staff of authority as the Father and the Son, signifies by pointing to the rectangular opening in the front of the altar that this divine sacrifice is a sacrifice for the salvation of the world... 

“As the mysteries of the intimate life of the Holy Trinity are unfolded to us, our eyes become more and more aware of that small rectangular opening in front beneath the chalice... it is the place to which the Spirit points and where we become included in the divine circle... its position in the altar signifies that there is room around the divine table only for those who are willing to become participants in the divine sacrifice by offering their lives as a witness to the love of God. It is the place where the relics of the martyrs are placed, the place for the remains of those who have offered all they had to enter the house of love.” 

Nouwen concludes, “I pray that Rublev’s icon will teach many how to live in the midst of a fearful, hateful, and violent world while moving always deeper into the house of love.” The canons of the Stoglav Council (1551) encourage Orthodox believers not to look at the Icon as “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” – three individuals – but instead as the Holy Trinity: a Tri-Unity toward Whom our prayers are directed.

To summarize our understanding of the Holy Trinity we may say the following:

1)    First with regard to the Son: all that Jesus was in the Incarnation was human (His humanity); all that Jesus was in the Incarnation was also divine (His deity). All that Jesus is eternally is divine (deity), eternally “begotten” of the Father, uniquely identified with Him in essential being (Ousia) and in substance (homoousios, consubstantialem Patri). When, in the Creed, we say that Jesus is “God from God,” we affirm His eternal generation from the Father. When we say that He is “Light from Light,” we are borrowing from Tertullian’s Trinitarian analogy of the emanation of light and heat from the sun: the Father is analogous to the sun, the Son is analogous to its rays, and the Holy Spirit is analogous to its focus. He also used the analogy of root, shoot and fruit. Tertullian (d. 240) was the first Church Father in whose extant writings we find the term “Trinity,” described as being of one substance (substantia), or fundamental reality, manifested in three Persons (personae). In Evensong, we sing the most ancient of all known Greek hymns, the Phos hilaron from c. 300. In it we praise the Son as the “gracious Light” Who is the “pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven.” 

2)    And second, with regard to the Holy Spirit: all that the Holy Spirit is eternally is also of one being and one substance with the Father and the Son. When we come to the Holy Spirit in the Creed, regardless of what we say with regard to its “procession,” we affirm that the Spirit is rightfully addressed as “Lord” and as One Who, “with the Father and the Son, is to be worshiped and glorified.” John of Damascus, one of the Greek Fathers, wrote c. 700 that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father, but “rests in the Son” and is “communicated through the Son.” 

All Christian worship is Trinitarian worship. The first words spoken in our Eucharistic liturgy, the Acclamation, are, “Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit” except during Eastertide when we say, “Alleluia! Christ is risen.” And after every Psalm or canticle, whether in Morning and Evening Prayer, Compline or Holy Eucharist, we make the Trinitarian doxological statement, “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.” When we make the sign of the Cross, while its primary focus is to identify us with Jesus Christ as His own people for whom He gave His life on the Cross, we also recognize that the sign itself has a clear Trinitarian aspect directly related to +Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Any time that a blessing is pronounced in Anglican worship, it is invariably a Trinitarian blessing. The Kyrie eleison is repeated three times; the Gloria invokes the Trinity in its text; the Creed is Trinitarian; the Sanctus and Trisagion have three repetitions of Holy, Holy, Holy; the Agnus Dei is repeated three times; and many prayers conclude with a formula such as “in the Name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever.” 

On this Trinity Sunday, may we come to a clearer devotional understanding of what it means to worship in the Name of the Triune God; and through the testimony of Scripture and the visual aids provided in our iconography, may we be certain to give Him all honor and praise, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, often called the “Birthday of the Church.” It comes 10 days after the Ascension and 50 days after the Resurrection, which is why it’s called Pentecost. But it also is one of the holidays that come originally from the roots of our Hebrew traditions, a fact known to very few Christians even though we should acknowledge the borrowing and even the overlapping of two very important holidays. 

The Hebrew name for this holiday is Shavuot, the Festival of “weeks,” specifically the 7 weeks from the second day of Passover until the giving of the Law to Moses at Sinai on the 50th day after the Exodus from Egypt; thus in Judaism the day of Shavuot also is known as Pentecost. Theoretically the two celebrations, Jewish Pentecost and Christian Pentecost, should occur in close proximity. The first Christian Pentecost, as recorded in Acts, apparently coincided with Shavuot, as we will see. But calendars being what they are and have been, in 2016, for example, Shavuot will be on June 12 while our Pentecost is on May 15. As it happens, this year Shavuot falls on a Sunday, so we will be able to celebrate both days separately!

We all know the basic story of what happened on the first Christian Pentecost as described in today’s reading from Acts. But the understanding of precisely what occurred and how it relates to the experiences of 21st century Christians varies widely. We have a whole branch of the Christian Church that calls itself Pentecostal, believing that what happened in the second chapter of Acts was just the tip of the iceberg and is normative for today’s believers as well. Here is yet another area where we can celebrate the diversity within the body of Christ without needing to be critical of those whose actual experiences differ from our own. But this also is an area where there can be spiritually harmful consequences in trying to insist that everyone’s experience should be exactly the same as our own. 

Obviously all good Christians should be Anglicans: they should love liturgical worship; recite the creeds; genuflect, bow, kneel and cross themselves; love chanting, incense, ancient hymns and sophisticated sacred choral repertoire; wear vestments; say the Lord’s Prayer in Elizabethan English and come to the Holy Eucharist at least as often as we do. Most of our charismatic friends who, as Pentecostals, name themselves after today’s holiday, would disagree on every single one of these points. Yet there are charismatic Anglicans, charismatic Catholics, charismatic Lutherans, charismatic Methodists and there must even be charismatic Baptists, though I’ve never met one. In that broader sense of the word, the persons who call themselves charismatics and Pentecostals tend to be those who focus on one or two gifts of the Holy Spirit, not necessarily to the neglect of others, but often with an emphasis so strong as to suggest that those who do not possess the same gifts as they are somehow less than fully Christian. No doubt most of you have encountered such persons. We certainly have.

So what really did happen on the first Pentecost Day when the Church was born, and what should we learn from it that is normative and applicable to our own experience? Notice that the language Luke uses is similar to the language to which John resorts in Revelation when trying to describe spiritual phenomena that defy typical descriptive categories. The disciples were all gathered together in one place when they heard a “noise” like a violent rushing wind and they saw something that resembled “tongues as of fire” and they began speaking in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. The international crowd, Jews who lived in Jerusalem as well as pilgrims from throughout the Roman world who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Shavuot, were astonished that these Galileans could speak in many languages without taking any Berlitz courses. Some said that they must have been drunk, an unlikely condition for enabling one to speak a foreign language or we might all try it. 

Here as often Peter roots what is happening in the prophetic word of the Hebrew Scriptures, in this case from the prophesy of Joel that God would pour out His Spirit on all mankind, including sons, daughters, young men, old men, even on God’s male and female bondslaves. Joel added that there would be accompanying apocalyptic signs in the sky and on the earth, and that these events would occur in what he called “the last days,” leading many to assume that his prophesy began to be fulfilled at Pentecost but remains to be completed at some future time. We are well advised not to push prophesy beyond the limits of its specificity, but to wait to see how God will bring about in His time the things that cannot be described with the sort of concreteness that we would love to superimpose. 

What we do know for certain is that this Birthday of the Church was a supernatural event that seems to be without parallel in the history of Christianity. We know of no other occasion when large crowds of persons heard a band of minimally educated Christians speaking in multiple known languages simultaneously. Some have suggested that the crowd simply heard the disciples in their own languages; but what the text really says is that they heard them speaking in their own existing languages. We cannot speak to this with any certainty other than to acknowledge that the phenomenon occurred in a way that was beyond any human explanation.

These very limitations apply to many things regarding the Holy Spirit and its work. What does the Holy Spirit look like? Like a dove? Like “flaming tongues?” Of course we can presume that, being a spirit, the Holy Spirit can assume many forms or, more often than not, no form at all. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
What does Jesus say about the Holy Spirit in today’s Gospel? We have looked several times recently at the breadth of meanings for the word Jesus uses: “Paraclete,” one called alongside to help, one Who is our advocate, counselor, comforter, intercessor, care-giver and resident tutor. Jesus calls Him “the Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive;” yet He will abide with us internally and permanently. He will teach us all things and remind us of Jesus’ own teaching. And immediately after articulating these promises, Jesus tells us that He is leaving with us a peace beyond any that the world could ever give, an incomparable peace that drives away human fear. 

What does Paul say about the Holy Spirit in our epistle reading from Romans? That He leads us, just as God the Father leads us beside still waters and in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. He leads us just as God the Son leads us as our Good Shepherd Who knows His sheep and is known by them. So it is that we are led by the entire Godhead. “All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” And Paul, like Jesus, also relates the leading of the Holy Spirit to freedom from fear. Rather than fearing God or anything else in our lives, the Spirit encourages us to address God in the intimate language of the family as “Abba,” Daddy. The Spirit further affirms our family relationship to God by assuring us of our adoption as God’s children; and, says Paul, “if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,” though Paul promises that this may entail some suffering with Him as well as ultimately our glorification with Him: a spiritual form of “no pain, no gain.” 

When we combine what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit with what Paul writes, we have a picture of an incredibly special relationship with God that brings us comfort, peace, instruction, guidance and familial intimacy. This is precisely what Jesus meant when He assured His disciples that He would not leave them as orphans. 

My former rector at CHSLF writes a weekly blog that he calls “Monday Matters.” This past week he mentioned that on a recent birthday his wife gave him a Fitbit. Strapped to his wrist, it tells him how far he has walked, how many stairs he has taken, it shows his heart rate and his calorie intake, and it shows how well he sleeps. It made him wonder what a spiritual Fitbit would look like. He never mentioned the Holy Spirit in his blog, but it seems obvious to me that the Holy Spirit is our built-in spiritual Fitbit. If we’re paying close enough attention, the Holy Spirit will measure every aspect of our Christian walk and our spiritual health. But unlike the Fitbit, the Holy Spirit can be a difference-maker!

Among the many meanings of the word Paraclete is “one who exhorts.” We’re not wired to like exhortation all that much, but we all need it on a regular basis. A true friend or spouse will feel compelled from time to time to issue exhortations to us. And if that’s true, then certainly the Holy Spirit will be about the business of periodic or even frequent exhortation. We may call it “the voice of conscience,” but for the Christian that voice is indeed the voice of the Holy Spirit who enlightens our conscience and calls us to holy living. 
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And so, on this Pentecost Sunday, I am not calling you to focus on the extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Spirit, but on the daily ones: not to ecstatic prophetic utterances in unfamiliar tongues or to miraculous gifts of healing, important as those may be. I am calling you instead to be better listeners to the voice of the Paraclete that God has given to you at the request of His Son: the voice that comforts and consoles, the voice that teaches and gives counsel, the voice that advocates and intercedes for us; and the voice that exhorts us to live our lives after the example of Jesus Christ, in accordance with His teaching and according to all that the Holy Scriptures command us to be and to do. When we do that, we will come to understand better those mysterious words of Jesus, “he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these will he do; because I go to the Father.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

(Matthew 28:18-20)
18 Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

It’s a favorite “trick” of seminary professors, pastors and teachers to ask people this question: What did Jesus say we were to do? Finish this sentence: “Go ye into all the world and...”

They are waiting for you to say, “Preach the gospel,” because that’s what we all learned from the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel and from more than a few missionary hymns. Do you know why it’s a trick question? Because most seminary professors, pastors and teachers do not believe that the end of Mark 16 is authentic. It certainly is missing from some of the most important and most reliable of all early extant manuscripts. The early Latin fathers such as Jerome left it out because it did not appear in their Greek sources. The problem is compounded in that it does in fact appear in a few other early and generally reliable manuscripts, and some of the Greek fathers including Irenaeus refer to some of the verses in question. But we do have this account in Matthew 28 that is beyond dispute. And so, let’s look at a few important questions:

1)    What do we call these words from the risen Christ? (The Great Commission)
2)    To whom were they first addressed? (The 11 disciples)
3)    What was the intended scope of their activity in terms of geography and timetable? (All nations... to the end of the age)
4)    Was it realistic to suppose that the 11 could carry it out themselves? (Impossible)
5)    What exactly were they asked to do? (Make more disciples, baptize and teach)

When the Great Commission was couched in terms of going into all the world to preach the Gospel, 99% of Christians for centuries understood the reference to apply exclusively to missionary endeavors and, rightly or wrongly, no verses have appeared as routinely in appeals by missionary conference speakers. That is absolutely the way I grew up understanding the Great Commission in all of my childhood churches. It was really important, but it had nothing to do with me.

And this is actually the real reason why seminary professors, pastors and teachers are throwing out their favorite trick question: a correct understanding of Matthew 28:18-20 shows us that these words of Jesus to His disciples were not intended to be restricted to the 11 nor to missionaries who accept the call to foreign fields. They are by extension meant to be heard and put into practice by every one of us who name the Name of Jesus.

Some of the problem lies with the incorrect translation of the two-letter word “go,” still perpetuated in nearly every modern translation. It suggests that the verb is in the imperative, making it a commandment the application of which we have made quite limited. But the verb is not imperative, it is a participle and should be translated “Having gone,” or “Going,” or, perhaps best, “As you go.” There is the assumption that Jesus’ disciples are on the move, whether it is “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, (or) even to the remotest part of the earth" (Acts 1:8), as Jesus said to His disciples immediately before His ascension (the observance of which comes up this week Thursday).

So much for the exclusive missionary appeal. Taken in context and compared with similar statements of Jesus Himself, we see that the witness to Jesus should take place wherever we find ourselves, starting with where we already are. We actually could paraphrase what Jesus is saying as “wherever you are, and whenever you are going anywhere...” Do what? Make disciples, baptize and teach. 

What does that mean for us, practically speaking? Do we really want to know? This is a huge piece of being obedient to Jesus’ commandments, and we have seen that this is Jesus’ expectation of all of us, according to His own words in John 14 and 15: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). And so, as we go, wherever we go, whenever we go there, anywhere, we are supposed to be making disciples. This takes serious work. This definitely is more comprehensive than simply preaching the Gospel. This definitely demands much more from us. 

Discipling people takes time, commitment and patience. It requires getting close to persons whose experience of the Christian faith is less advanced than our own, who have lacked our level of exposure to Jesus’ teaching, whose experience does not include a personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ. It is not a flash-in-the-pan relationship where we throw out a few crumbs of Gospel truth and leave our hearers to figure out where to go from there. It means actually knowing unbelievers well enough that they will ask us the right questions and we will lead them further in God’s truth. 

Why is it that we so seldom actually do this? Each of us may have different excuses to offer. Often it comes down to a sense of inadequacy. But even the apostle Paul, speaking in terms of his own ministry, asked “Who is adequate for these things?” (II Corinthians 2:16). He also provides the right answer: “Our adequacy comes from God” (II Cor. 3:5). Then he adds another rhetorical question: “How shall (our) ministry of the Spirit fail to be with glory” (II Cor. 3:8) and he answers, “Since we have such a hope, we speak with great boldness” (II Cor. 3:12). And later he adds, “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord... for God Who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor. 4:5,6). 

One more observation from the Great Commission: note the order of things, and ponder how it relates to what we know about the way things were done routinely in the early Church: “Make disciples, baptize, teach.”  What is the typical order in the Church today?

For adults, it’s “Make converts, teach, then baptize.” For children, its “Baptize, teach, then make disciples.” There is something wrong with both of these models. Far too often children are baptized in our churches without the least bit of follow-up with Christian Education, discipling and teaching. What happens to those infants?

We spent a lengthy period of intense disagreement in seminary over how long baptismal teaching of adults should last, with opinions ranging from a few sessions to a few years. But the NT model was to baptize immediately. The haste of the Ethiopian eunuch who said to Philip, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?” accorded perfectly well with the standard procedure of the disciples, who baptized entire families on their first profession of faith. But what is supposed to follow baptism is teaching: in Jesus’ words, teaching the newly baptized “to observe all things that I have commanded you.” That’s how new disciples are to be formed in the faith. And that is precisely what is lacking in many of our churches today. There are commandments of Jesus that need to be part of a systematic catechism in every single church.
We all comment on the uniqueness of the Bible Study, fellowship, meal-sharing and worship of Grace Fellowship. How wonderful it is that we are able to experience this. How blessed we are. But how sad that it’s so exceptional when it should be the norm, when it probably was the NT norm, and when we tend to keep it to ourselves without ever inviting others to join us for the experience!

Yes, the Great Commission is for all of us. It is an expectation that those of us who have been blessed with the life in Christ Jesus will obey His commission to share the good news of the Gospel with others. It is a spiritual discipline; and without our exercise of it, the Church would disappear. All of us should be in the business of making disciples and teaching others the commandments of Christ. With the help of the Holy Spirit, may we become obedient to this specific commandment in order to grow the Church of Jesus Christ and to bring about the expansion of His Kingdom on this earth. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen

In today’s Gospel reading from John 14 we find Jesus gathered with His disciples in the Upper Room, the Passover Seder has been eaten, both the betrayal and the denials have been predicted, and what we call the Upper Room Discourse is underway when Jesus begins to speak in terms that are a bit challenging. At the end of John’s Gospel when we have Jesus asking three times whether Peter loves Him, all Jesus asks in return is that Peter will feed His sheep. But here Jesus says that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments and we will keep His words, which in fact are the Father’s own words. 

If on the surface this does not seem too daunting, then we have a very shallow understanding of what Jesus’ commands entail. You have heard it said that Jesus only commanded a handful of things: loving Him as He loved us, remembering Him in the Eucharist, making disciples and baptizing them (clearly something only clergy are expected to do) and possibly washing each other’s feet once a year, if then. 

But on closer inspection we remember to our chagrin that there were dozens of other commandments and “words” from Jesus of a far more demanding and comprehensive nature. In a sense we probably could both start and end with just one: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). That’s harsh. But we can ratchet it up a notch by going just a few chapters later in Luke and finding these words: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26,27). No doubt the “large crowds following Jesus” (vs. 25) heard those words as purely figurative, having no clue at that point that when Jesus spoke of crosses He was not speaking metaphorically. They must have caught the drift in a generalized sort of way that Jesus was speaking of self-sacrifice and hardship, something along the lines of what it would cost to chase around the Holy Land after a migrant miracle-worker. They knew He could not possibly have meant anything more than something vaguely figurative about hating mother, father, children, sisters and brothers, not to mention oneself. It was only natural to throw cross-bearing into that same category of hyperbole.

But here’s the sad truth: that is exactly what most of us do today after 2,000 years of trying to untangle what Jesus meant. We have the huge advantage of 20/20 hindsight and we still take Jesus’ words with many grains of salt. We sing, “Jesus loves me,” and in the next breath sing “O, how I love Jesus,” and then we live pretty much the same as those who lack both this insider knowledge and this pledge of commitment. In our day there are remarkably few persons who live out this or any “commitment.”  Instead of showing our love for Jesus by obeying His commandments and His words from the Father, we simply sing the words that Chicagoan Philip P. Bliss penned in 1870: 

I am so glad that our Father in Heav’n              I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
Tells of His love in the Book He has giv’n;        Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me;
Wonderful things in the Bible I see,                  I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.            Jesus loves even me.

These words are true words, to be sure; but there’s so much more. What’s “more” is that Jesus actually demands that we demonstrate our reciprocal love for Him through our own sacrificial discipleship.
Why is it that we are so resistant to following Jesus according to His own words? I think that for many of us and, at times, perhaps for all of us, following Jesus seems too risky. Consciously or unconsciously we all tend to be more the disciples of hedonism and utilitarianism than of Jesus, weighing the balance of pleasure over pain and deciding that following Jesus does not tilt the scales far enough in the right direction. 

But what if we’re wrong? What are we sacrificing when we do that? Even Immanuel Kant understood the “moral imperative” in a sense not altogether different from the understanding of Emmanuel Jesus: our conscience provides a sense of “ought” that should transcend our “reason” whenever the two seem to be in conflict. Accordingly, if Jesus says that we must be cross-bearers who obey His commandments, and our consciences tell us that He must surely be right, then we need to get past our feeling that somehow these demands are unreasonable.

Does Jesus promise us some sort of reward if we do what is right and is in accordance with His commandments and words from the Father? He certainly does! He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). How can Jesus make good on this incredible promise? Because there is another person of the Godhead provided to make it a reality: He says that the Paraklete, the “Helper, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (vs. 26). Why would we forfeit anything as extraordinary as that? “Helper” might be the feeblest and least concrete translation of “Paraklete.” Other translations offer “Advocate,” “Comforter,” “Counselor” and “Intercessor.” The cluster of meanings is blissfully inexhaustible. We often simply reduce it etymologically to “the One Who is called alongside to help,” the very sort of thing every one of us actually craves. 

Do we doubt that this reward for obedience to Jesus’ commandments would tilt the scales heavily in favor of pleasure over pain? What else does Jesus promise in this context in addition to a constant Helper who is sent from the Father in His Name? He promises two of the greatest treasures known to humankind: peace and freedom from fear! Where else are we going to find those extraordinary gifts? And they are ours for the taking. Paul assures us that this “peace of God that passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). He writes that “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). And Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading that the peace He gives is “not as the world gives” (vs. 27), a rather reassuring thought for all of us who know how uncertain and transitory world peace always proves to be. 

What about freedom from fear? Here is where Jesus the realist kicks in. Later in this same Upper Room discourse Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world" (16:33). Yes, in the world we will have tribulation: Jesus actually guarantees it. But He promises the antidote for fear: “I have overcome the world.” This is the same God Who said to Isaiah, “Do not fear, for I am with you... for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Is. 41:10). John writes at the end of His life that “perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18). And in yet another verse that beautifully connects fearless living with the unity of the Godhead, Paul writes: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15). 

Again, this intimacy is exactly what Jesus was promising in our Gospel: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (vs. 23). Jesus also said, “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you’” (vs. 28), referring to His promise of the Holy Spirit, the Paraklete. And in the next chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus reiterates His promise with a slightly different emphasis: "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love” (15:10). Reflecting on this many years later, John writes, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (I John 4:16). 

Yes, there are demanding aspects of keeping Jesus’ commandments and obeying His words. While at times the requirements do indeed seem stiff, this is the same Savior Who reassures us with His promise, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). And the rewards are incomparable: Peace, freedom from fear, and intimacy with God the Father and God the Son. Even that’s not all: there is also the promise of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit Who is “called alongside to help,” and Who, in the process, “will teach (us) all things, and bring to (our) remembrance all that (Jesus) said” (vs. 26). 

Do we need more incentive than this? To be sure, there is a cost of discipleship and God’s grace does not come cheaply. But the guarantees should propel us forward in our determination to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to Him and in accordance with His commandments. 

And so, as Paul exhorts us in Ephesians, “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2).

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen