Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20
“When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Matthew 28:17
Today’s scripture readings from Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew are bookends to a kind of cosmic blockbuster journey. In Genesis we hear the story of THE beginning, creation taking place at the hands of the Trinitarian God we worship. God the Father speaks his Word, and in reply his Spirit sweeps over the face of the waters of that dark, formless void. God creates… everything… including humans during those six cosmic days, and when he is finished God calls creation “good” and God “rests” from his work. Perfection achieved, paradise established, and those first humans are placed right in the center of God’s work to be his helpers. Heaven and earth are one, and God walks with and talks with our first cosmic descendants in the cool of the evening breeze.
Then comes the vast middle of the story. That serpent crawls out from under some rock and manages to sweet talk Eve and Adam into breaking their relationship, their covenant with God. Paradise is not lost, but paradise is lost to us as God separates heaven and earth, rends perfection from creation, and we are now locked out of the paradise that included us, paradise that was built for us to be a part of, not a stranger to.
Next over thousands of years many misfits embark on long and dangerous journeys to search for our God who locked us out of Eden, and to see if we would someday be allowed back in. Those holy misfits had names like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachael and Leah; Lot; Joseph with his dreams and colorful cloak; Noah and his family in their ark; Moses and Aaron and Joshua leading the Hebrews to the promised land; Elijah and Elisha and Samuel the great early prophets; David the first king of all Israel and Solomon the last king of all Israel; a host of other prophets called Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggi, Zechariah, and Malachi.
And finally in this long line of prophets comes Jesus of Nazareth with his rag-tag band of misfits, disciples with names like James and John, Simon and
Andrew, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James and Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot. They journey together for three years, weather many hardships and skirt many dangers, have some moments of comic relief and blissful ignorance, and they challenge the powers-that-be many times. Finally in Jerusalem during the feast of Passover Jesus and his misfits engage both Rome and Institutional Judaism in a confrontation of cosmic proportions. Outnumbered and scattered by fear and doubt, it appears the powers of this world are victorious when his misfits flee and Jesus the prophet and rumored King of the Jews sacrifices himself and is executed outside the Holy City.
But then at the last minute Jesus the hero turns the battle from defeat into victory as he, in his sacrifice then resurrection, single handedly becomes the conduit between Heaven and Earth, connects creation and paradise again.
Finally, in today’s reading from Matthew, Jesus the hero leads his misfits, once twelve of them but now only eleven, to a mountaintop where he shares their victory and declares his eternal fraternity with them… with us. Jesus instructs his disciples in how they are to continue winning souls to God’s growing kingdom on earth. But though Jesus the hero will be with them always in Spirit, Jesus has been so transformed by his resurrection that he must now leave them, in body and in soul, and return to his eternal home, which is no longer with his disciples.
Matthew sums up the blockbuster by returning to the Trinitarian reality of God found in the first chapter of Genesis using the familiar formula: Father; Word now Son; and Holy Spirit to describe their three-in-one relationship of ultimate love.
Even in the midst of such an amazing and cosmic journey, some will still look back and doubt… sometimes we will have doubts… sometimes it will all seem too long ago and too good to be true. Sometimes even when we are looking straight into the face of the miraculous, of Jesus’ own face, it may all be too much to fully comprehend or to believe; too much to hope for that this world will ever know justice and an end to suffering; too much to hope for that we are worthy of the fierce and eternal and unbreakable love God holds for us; too much to hope for that a poor Galilean would purposefully challenge that injustice and suffering and ultimately, and obediently, go to his death for the millions and billions of us that would only hear his story as ancient history and view his life and accomplishments as a legend of old.
But the Good News today is that just because this blockbuster story given to us as scripture has ended, that doesn’t mean the journey for us is over – far from it. The story of God’s redeeming love is never over, it is living and eternal. Although God’s kingdom is now present in this world, though we can’t see it with human eyes but only with the human heart, this blockbuster continues in us and through us. We are the sequel, we have been given the keys to the kingdom, and every good sequel needs new characters and especially new heroes to carry on where those who have gone before left off. This cosmic sequel is not over until everyone has heard the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. This eternal story of salvation is not ended until every hopeless heart and wounded soul believes that God has not abandoned them like this world has. This Kingdom of God that we live in but cannot see with our human eyes calls out through our human hearts: feed the hungry – everyone deserves to be fed; cloth the naked – everyone deserves to be free from shame; welcome the immigrant – they built every nation on the sweat of their backs; visit the prisoner – in the right circumstances there but for the grace of God go we; heal the sick – everyone deserves relief from suffering and a peaceful end; and finally judge not lest you leave yourself liable to judgment.
The Good News today is that as Christians we have been given the keys to God’s Kingdom. Jesus calls us to use those keys to baptize and to make disciples of all nations. Jesus calls us to use those keys to bring God’s message of forgiveness and reconciliation to all peoples. Jesus calls us to make God’s kingdom known throughout the world, not through intimidation or shaming or fear-mongering, but by preaching and acting out love and forgiveness in all things, and if necessary, by giving up our very lives to make God’s kingdom real to this world.
The Good News today is that, even when we doubt God’s love for us, even when we question His will for us, even when we can’t see past our own pain and suffering, even when it feels impossible to comprehend Jesus’ sacrifice for us and to connect that with our everyday lives, God still believes in us… God eternally loves us… God is always with us – hear John’s last words of Jesus to us in his Gospel and believe: “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of time.”
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