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April 11, 2010
“Lies, Doubts, and Orders”
Matthew 28: 11 - 20
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The events related to Easter cannot be limited to only one Sunday each year. According to the church’s liturgical calendar Easter is a season that lasts for 5 Sundays. That works well for me because it might take me that long to eat all of my Easter Candy.
So today, as we worship on the second Sunday of Easter or Eastertide as it used to be called, we are still looking at events that happened shortly after the resurrection of Jesus.
You might have noticed that our scripture passage from Matthew is comprised of two paragraphs. These paragraphs describe separate events that occurred on different days. The first event occurred shortly after the resurrection on Easter morning.
According to the gospel of Matthew, there were Roman Soldiers guarding the tomb of Jesus at the request of the chief priests. The priests were concerned that Jesus’ followers might steal the body and claim that he had raised from the dead as he said he would.
I have always found this fact to be ironically funny. The chief priests, who were enemies of Jesus, understood His message and claims better than Jesus’ apostles. They had refused to hear His predictions about his death and resurrection and when He was killed, none of them were expecting His resurrection. None of them seem to have remembered that Jesus had predicted his resurrection until the angels reminded the women at the tomb.
Likewise, sometimes people who are strangers to the church have a clearer understanding of the claims of Christ than some of us who have been Christians for years. Sometimes it is good for us to listen for outside voices, as long as we check their messages with what is clearly revealed in the Scriptures.
Anyway, the Chief Priests had been granted a group of Roman Soldiers to guard the tomb of Jesus. Matthew informs us that at dawn on Easter, An earthquake occurred and an angel descended from heaven, rolled back the stone covering the opening of the tomb and sat on the stone. I like to think that the angel’s sitting on the stone was kind of a challenge to the guards, a nonverbal way of saying “what are you going to do about it?”
The response of the soldiers was to faint. They had either regained consciousness and left the scene before the women arrived, or they were still unconscious while the women arrived and had their conversation with the angels.
It is at this point that our passage begins. While the women were going to inform the apostles that Jesus had risen, the guards went to the chief priests to tell them about the angel and the empty tomb. The women went joyfully. The guards went in dread.
The guards were in big trouble at this point. In the Roman Army those who failed to successfully guard a prisoner or edifice were executed. These guards had failed to keep the body of Jesus in that tomb. They had failed to carry out the orders of the priests, so they reported to the Priests first. And then their day began to improve considerably. The priests determined to construct a cover-up and they were willing to pay the soldiers to say that instead of fainting at the sight of an angel, they had fallen asleep. Admitting that they had fallen asleep was normally a sure fire path to execution for a Roman Soldier, but the priests told them that they would intervene on their behalf with the governor. So the soldiers went away greatly relieved. They had thought they would be killed, now there was a good chance they would survive and they had been given some money. The Greek words here mean “large money”
But, aside from the relief and pleasure of the guards, what we have here is the beginning of a lie about the resurrection of Jesus – the lie being that it never happened.
That lie is still being told. The assumption of many in the world is that Jesus was just a man and therefore could not have risen from the dead. Some in the church even doubt the physical resurrection of the dead. But in Palestine, it was accepted that the tomb was empty. Tertullian, writing towards the end of the second century related that Pilate informed Tiberius about the resurrection of Jesus and that Tiberius tried to get the Roman Senate to pass a decree enrolling Jesus in the list of the Roman Gods. All sorts of lies and misunderstandings about Jesus persist in our own times.
The second paragraph of our passage describes an event, maybe more than one event that occurred days after the resurrection in Galilee. Jesus occasionally visited with his apostles and others during the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension.
I have always been intrigued with verse 17 of this chapter of Matthew. It says, speaking of the 11 Apostles: “When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.” After the resurrection of Jesus, after he had appeared to them in the upper room late on the day of his resurrection, After or while they were worshipping him, which by the way was a first for them, some of them still doubted. Isn’t that surprising?
Well, maybe not. That is the nature of our being fallen human beings and being called to believe in God. We have our doubts. They can come at any time. They sometimes come when we are in crisis. But the fact that some of the apostles had doubts about Jesus and perhaps about his resurrection did not make them non-Christians, nor did it keep them from being apostles, because they still believed. And they went on to serve the Lord in mighty ways in spite of their doubts.
The remainder of this passage, which is the remainder of the gospel of Matthew, gives us Matthew’s version of what we have come to know as “the great commission”. In this account, Jesus begins by saying “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” That, by the way is one of the things we sometimes doubt. If Jesus has all authority down here, then why do such horrible things happen? I won’t say I don’t know because I do have some theories, but that will have to be the subject some other time.
But after stating his authority, he gave them a command which is very interesting. He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Now there is a lot of noteworthy material in this commission or command. Some of the things that are commonly commented on are the fact that the good news about Jesus is to be taken out to all nations. We of course have the opportunity to demonstrate the love of Christ to many nations because of the international community that is within 2 miles of our church.
This passage also is one of the rare mentions of the Trinity in the gospels. Believers are to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I will be talking more about these 3 partners within God later this Spring.
There is also the mention here that Christians are to be taught to obey all that Jesus has commanded. We are not saved because of our obedience, but we are to be obedient if we are Christains.
But there are 2 other things in these verses that I want you to notice.
First of all please notice what the apostles were to make of the people of the nations: Disciples. In the Greek it means students. We are to be students of Christ, ever-learning from Him and about Him and his ways. Christians should never stop reading and studying the bible. We are to be students of Christ.
Then I want you to notice that Jesus said he would be with them always, to the end of the age. The Greek words translated always here mean all days, as long as there are days. The Greek words for the end of the age mean the end of this age, in other words, until Christ returns.
Now the 11 apostles would all be dead within 70 years. So what did Christ mean by ending his commission or command with these phrases? He meant that this command was not only for the apostles and the first generation of Christians, it was for all generations of Christians who would live on earth. In our time this commission or commandment is for us. We are to take the good news of Jesus to all people and peoples and make them students of Jesus.
We are to do this as the apostles did in a world where there were lies circulating about Jesus and even when they had their doubts. In the midst of lies and doubts we are to follow the command of Jesus and tell others about Him.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at April 11, 2010 03:42 PM