How can we respond to the Great Commission?

Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.''

Mark, chapter 16, verses 15-19

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.'' After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.

There are two accounts of the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples and I have printed them above in their translation from the New International Version of the Bible. Both Matthew and Mark present these as the last words that Jesus said to his disciples in his earthly form. Moreover, they make it clear that it is the risen Christ that is talking, if we needed any further indication of the significance that the two Gospel writers placed on these commands. Although the version attributed to St. Mark gives more detail, both can be seen to be giving the same basic message: that the disciples should not keep to themselves the good news of the Kingdom of God that Jesus had taught and shown to them. The Christian Church that grew and eventually found its way to places like Trentham (far from Galilee, which is where St. Matthew says that the words were spoken) was created not only by the disciples who heard Jesus but also by people in subsequent generations who carried out this commission. So what does this mean for those who strive to be Christians in today?

Only the special few take the message to distant places and so most of us do not see ourselves as missionaries. However, we do have a real challenge very close to home that we can all get involved in because there is no doubt that there are many people living within the boundaries of the Parish who have not received the message. Of course, most of them would claim that they know of it and would probably even put "Christianity" down as their religion, if they were filling in a form where this was a question. In fact, this is part of the problem that we have when trying to reach out to them. But the key factor, and one that we must not ignore, is that many people around us do not see the relevance of God, let alone any of the teachings of Jesus and his Church, in their lives, at present. The message that they get most clearly from this world is that everything they need for their own gratification is to be had here and now. All they need to be contented is to have more possessions, or to be fitter, or to have more power, their rights recognised, more food, more sex..... the list could go on. Living in an affluent suburb like Trentham can be seen as a step to the way to achieving their goal and they will do it by their own efforts so: "who needs God and religion?" they might say to us.

One of our problems in meeting this challenge is that we nearly all have aspects of the practise of our faith that have come to mean a lot to us (it could be reading the Bible, or singing songs of praise, or prayer, or going to church) and it is therefore easy for us to believe that if only other people did the same they would bound to feel the same as we do. Another problem is that we get impatient and want quick and visible results and thus we can fall into the trap of competing with the other messages from this world on their own terms and end up by reinforcing them instead of helping to reveal a greater truth.

God is all powerful, as we know, but he is also very patient and waits to reveal himself to us when we are ready and where we are at that time. Jesus started by helping individuals: He healed them and provided for their needs and it was this that brought the crowds and gave Him the opportunity to explain that it was not He who was performing some miraculous trick but the work of His Father and the visible proof that there was a higher Law and a greater reality than the one that they were used to in this world. His disciples and those that carried on their work in the early centuries of the spread of the Word did not have or need the Bible, as we know it. They were able to communicate the Good News from their own experience of how it had changed them. We are lucky that we have more tools than they had but no tool, however powerful, is of any use unless the user knows how and when to use it.

Therefore we must be patient, open to the Word ourselves and be prepared to be changed. We must allow ourselves to be moulded so that we are worthy to be the tool of our Lord and God. Only then, if we can be attentive to the yearning soul of our neighbour and allow the Spirit to show us how and when to help, can we be there at the point when they, as individuals, realise that this world cannot supply all of their needs. We can help them to understand that there is something more and better than the things they have come to expect. And we should not be afraid to see, here in Britain, the signs that were foretold as the mark of those who believe.

Paul Newman, 1997

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