Is this disrespectful or might this be the perfect illustration of what baptism is?
Open your Bibles to Matthew 28:16-20. You already know this famous passage. Jesus has been crucified, died and resurrected. He has already appeared to His remaining eleven disciples in various ways. But now, perhaps to accommodate a much larger crowd (such as the 500 witnesses mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:6), arrangements were made to meet the risen LORD Jesus on a mountainside in Galilee. This is one of many important mountainside moments in the life of Christ. He shared His greatest sermon on a mountain. He was transfigured on a mountain. He fed the 4,000 on a mountain. He would soon ascend again to His Father from a mountain. While we will never know if all these things took place on the same mountain, it is nonetheless very fitting that these great words would come from Jesus on yet another mountainside moment of His life.
And it is also wonderfully fitting for Matthew to tell us that mingled into the wonderful worship that day was some serious doubt. Just like today, some worshipped, some doubted and perhaps some did a bit of both! While all Jerusalem knew the amazing stories about Jesus, there was still some doubt. There was confusion. There was some uncertainty about what everything meant and what came next. And so Jesus Christ came and clarified things; clearly and concisely explaining the great, cannonball splash the disciples were to make on the world.
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 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, 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Our culture doesn’t like bombastic, all-encompassing truth statements anymore, does it? Truth statements like these are like cannonballs in the tub; they make a mess. They disturb our religion and surprise us. And yet there are at least four baptismal cannonballs in this short five verse passage. Interestingly enough, at least one scholar argues these four critically important, cannonballing truth statements come close to summarizing the entire message and meaning of the Gospel of Matthew. When we embrace our LORD Jesus in a fully baptized life of Christian discipleship, I believe we are embracing four, very splashy, very joyous truths.
All Authority
The first of these truths is found in the “all” statement of verse 18. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Before we talk about anything, folks, before we go anywhere or do anything at all religious, we must understand that we are not in charge of anything. Our baptism cannonballs our recognition of the full authority of Jesus.
I have no authority of my own. As hard as I try to speak authoritatively and powerfully to the world around me, ultimately, I have and am no authority on anything. As much as I prayerfully and sincerely hope I will prove myself trustworthy, I must not even try to get any of you to trust me; I must try to get all of us to trust Jesus. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ, not to me, not to you, not to Mohammed, Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard, Gandhi or any other religious celebrity. All authority has been given to Jesus. The minute we forget this and assume some perverse, arrogant, divine right to control this body of Christ/Christianity thing, we forfeit the right to do or say anything in the name of Jesus.
How much fighting and failure is there in the Christian church today simply because we forget who is really in charge? To be fully baptized into Jesus Christ is to utterly reject the idea of controlling your life or anyone else’s. I know the idea of giving up control and authority isn’t popular these days, it is wildly counter-cultural, but it is the true way of the Cross.
Susan Kimber told the story years ago of her frustrating struggle with her strong-willed son, Thomas. She said once, when he was three, she “looked him in the eye and asked a question I felt sure would bring him immediately into line: "Thomas, who is in charge here?" Not missing a beat, our monstrous Sunday-school-born-and-bred toddler replied, "Jesus is.”
Inasmuch as that wasn’t exactly the answer Mommy was looking for at that moment, inasmuch as little Thomas probably still has much to learn about Jesus being in charge, it was the correct answer, wasn’t it? It was the only answer upon which a Christian life can be built.
All Nations
And yet Jesus didn’t leave the conversation there, did He? Look at verse 19 for the next cannon-balling, all encompassing truth statement in this passage. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Father, Son & Holy Spirit.” The universal authority given to Jesus results directly in the universal mission given the church. Our baptism is our splashy, cannonball embrace of the disciple-making mission given us by Jesus.
I know grammar can be boring and unpopular, but there’s something very important in the grammar of verses 19 and 20 we must notice. We must understand that there is only one imperative verb in these two verses; the command to “make disciples.” The other verbs (going, baptizing and teaching) are only present participles. They only become imperative commands because of their connection to the fully imperative “making disciples.” And this means all this “going, baptizing and teaching” stuff is assumed! It means we are all naturally and constantly going to be doing those things as we make disciples of all nations. We all have one mission!
Going is assumed! Baptizing is assumed! Teaching is assumed! As Keith Green once got himself in trouble for saying, “This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls!” When Jesus met these folks on the mountain, He was announcing the time had finally come to get moving. Jesus proclaimed His disciple-making concern for all nations. In baptism, we are bombastically embracing our Christian disciple-making mission.
All Obedient
And that brings us to the third great cannonball statement. Look again at the first part of verse 20 where Jesus says we are to be “teaching them to obey everything [all] I have commanded you.” Jesus has been given all authority. He has ordered us to make disciples of all nations. But we also must understand the standard for all of us as disciples is that we would be all obedient; that we would obey everything Jesus taught. This is cannonball obedience!
A disciple is not a religious spectator. A disciple is someone who goes far beyond simply hearing the commands of Jesus. A disciple is someone longing to obey. A disciple is someone longing to put the teaching and example of Jesus into practice; to fully baptize themselves into the death of Jesus and be fully raised together into new life in Jesus. As Frances Bacon once said, “It is not what men eat, but what they digest that makes them strong; not what we gain, but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read, but what we remember that makes us learned; not what we preach or pray, but what we practice, obey and believe that makes us Christians.” We want to make disciples. We desperately want to be made disciples.
Jennifer Jarrett told a great obedience story years ago about her little girl. She said, “One day I asked my little girl Catherine where her slippers were. “Downstairs in the kitchen,” she told me. “What are they doing there, honey?” I asked. “Well nothing, Mommy!” she replied. “They can't walk because they don't have feet in them right now.” Duh!
We aren’t disciples unless and until we obediently put feet into our faith. We are not disciples of Christ unless and until we obey all Jesus taught us. We aren’t here for religious instruction or weekly religious entertainment. We aren’t here to pad the numbers or make ourselves popular. We are here to make better disciples; to help all people do a better job of obeying all Jesus taught us. When we enter these baptismal waters, we are expressing our cannonball desires to obey all Jesus taught and modeled for us. Disciples are all obedient.
All Present
And now look, fourth and finally, at the last “all” statement at the very end of verse 20. All authority belongs to Jesus. We are to make disciples of all nations. We are to obey all Jesus taught us, but fourth and finally, we must never forget our Lord Jesus Christ is always with us. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We aren’t alone in this thing!
There are two important facts to remember about this final sweeping “all” statement. First of all, please notice that this is a yet another direct claim to divinity by Jesus. This is a claim to omnipresence and only the one true God gets to do that! Jesus is making yet another claim to deity here! Saying stuff like this either makes Him crazy or God – you decide which!
But secondly, and far, far more importantly, Jesus Christ is telling us we will never be alone in all this stuff. I’m not going to lie to you! Yes, we are surrendering all authority and control of our lives to Jesus and that isn’t an easy thing to do. Yes, we are attempting to make disciples of all nations and that is a very difficult thing to do. That is a crazy hard thing to do! And yes, as baptized disciples of Jesus we are resolving to obey not just the letter, but the spirit of all Jesus modeled and taught. And that is a downright impossible thing to do! These three cannonball statements would be absurdly, laughably impossible for us even to attempt were it not for this fourth and final “all” statement. The fourth and final “all” statement is the only thing making the rest of this stuff palatable, possible and, amazingly, even pleasurable!
I am with you always, even to the end of the age! I am with you! The more we come to enjoy this constant, comforting presence of Jesus, the more we will long to do all the other things. We will long to surrender control. We will long to tell the story. We will long to obey.
And if you’ll let me get away with just one more moment of tedious grammar this morning, did you notice Jesus said “I am with you always” and not “I will be with you, I might be with you, I could be with you, I should be with you, I’ll think about it” or some other weak, qualified statement? We can trust His constant presence! We can joyously trust the I AM is all present in our lives! We can do all these things through Christ, who gives us strength!
Kathy Martin told the story years ago of the day her “three-year-old cousin, Mark, accidentally spilled his fruit punch on the floor one day. He decided to clean up the mess himself and dashed to the back porch to get the mop. Suddenly realizing it was dark outside, he became apprehensive about reaching out the door for the mop. His mother reminded him Jesus is present with him everywhere--even in the dark. Mark thought for a minute. Then, putting his face to the door, he said, "Jesus, if you're out there, will you hand me the mop?”
Jesus is out there! Jesus is in here! And He will be here for us in any and every scary situation we find ourselves in. We can trust His authority. We can make disciples in His name. We can obey His instructions. And we can do these things because we are not alone in this.
This might be the most central and critically important point of Matthew’s entire gospel. Matthew introduced Jesus Christ to us in verse 23 of the first chapter as the Emmanuel, God with us, and Matthew closes his gospel story by sharing the very same message. I am with you, even to the very end of the age! Emmanuel is found at both ends of the Gospel!
When we joyously cannonball ourselves into these beautiful baptismal waters, we are embracing all four of these enormous, big splash, truth statements. We are surrendering. We are embracing our mission. We are obeying. We are joyously acknowledging His constant presence in our lives. We are cannon-balling ourselves into the waters!
May we long to do so!
Amen.
