Go and Tell the Whole World

Matthew 28:16-20

The friends of Jesus climbed a mountain in Galilee. He had told them to come, and so they came, eleven of them, and eleven was all there were now.

Think of what they carried up that hill. Their hearts were beating fast, and they kept glancing at each other the whole way, because they had seen something no one ever expects to see. They had seen Jesus dead. And now they were climbing a mountain to see him alive.

And there he was.

Waiting for them at the top.

When they saw him, some of them fell down low and worshiped their friend, their Lord, alive again. Others stood there feeling wobbly inside, still a little unsure. Their love was real, and their wondering was real too, both at the very same time. Jesus did not turn them away for it. He came closer.

He came right up to them, the wobbly ones and the worshiping ones, all of them together.

And he said something so big it almost did not fit on that small mountain.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So go. Go and make followers out of every nation. Every land. Every kind of person, near and far. Welcome them in with water, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And teach them everything I taught you."

Every nation on the whole wide earth, and only eleven pairs of feet to carry the news that far. There was no army behind them. There were no riches, and no great crowd, only eleven ordinary people with dust on their feet and questions still in their hearts.

Have you ever been handed a job so big it looked like a mountain, when you were only an ant at the bottom of it? That is very much how the eleven could have felt. The world was so wide. And they were so few.

Then Jesus said the last thing they would hear from him on that mountain, and it was a promise, the warmest one there is.

"And remember. I am with you. Always. Every single day. All the way to the end of everything."

I am with you.

The job was never theirs to carry alone. The One with all authority in heaven and earth would go with them into every nation, down every dusty road, never once leaving their side. This was the joy he had set his heart on all the way back at the cross: a family with no one missing from it. And that day, on that hilltop, the gathering began.

So the eleven went down the mountain and out into the world, and they went because Jesus was walking with them.

The family he started gathering that day has been growing ever since. Out and out it has spread, nation after nation, one person telling the next, all the way down the years to you. You were one of the ones he had his heart set on, even then.

He is gathering still. He keeps his word to stay near, and he will not stop until the table is full and every last one of us is finally home with him. Somewhere in the world today, someone is hearing his name for the very first time, because eleven pairs of feet once started down a mountain in Galilee.