No Doubt Now :: Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went into Galilee, onto the mountain where Jesus directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.

Can you believe that? They doubted!? The Lord’s inner circle!? The eleven!? Those in whom he trusted most!? Those who knew him, who loved him. They worshiped him but they doubted.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by this news at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. When the disciples saw their resurrected Lord for the first time after he rose from the dead on Easter, they worshiped him, but they doubted. They knew who he is. They knew he was with the Father, and the Father was with him. 

Yet they were uncertain about what they were seeing. Perhaps they were afraid of what it would mean. Afraid of what he would say ... Afraid of what he was going to do ... Afraid ... just days after they all abandoned him in doubt and fear. 

How could any of the eleven doubt? This is Jesus, is it not? Does this mean Jesus really is God, equal to the Father and the Spirit, just as he told us over and over again? 

So they worshiped but they doubted.

We all do this ... don’t we? Are you willing to admit right now that it happens to you from time to time? You have trouble believing what you can’t see or understand, don’t you? We all come to worship every Sunday ... To sing praise to the God of Israel, to sing praise for his visitation, who has redeemed his people from their sin, accomplishing your salvation. 

But you have your doubts from time to time, don’t you?

It’s OK to admit it. That you are just like Peter on the water. There he was ... walking on water. Suddenly he took his eyes of Jesus, saw the wind, began doubting, and we cry out ... Lord, save me. And he does. 

So today ... on this Festival of the Holy Trinity ... let’s all face the truth for at least once, after joining Peter in our cries for mercy. 

Sometimes ... we have our doubts. Sometimes, it seems the Gospel is too good to be true. Sometimes it is just hard to wrap our mind around this Trinity in unity...  unity in Trinity thing. God is One but Three persons? But it’s true. 

Nevertheless, we struggle with it. How can I not doubt that I am living the eternal life now, even as this body decays, breaks down, and grows weak? How can I not doubt that Jesus is really with us, even as the world is burning around us? How can I believe he really listening to my prayer? Too often they seem unanswered.

These are all the questions I am sure the disciples must have been asking themselves in the wake of the death of Jesus as they walked up the mountain in Galilee. The false arrest, the mock trial, the beatings, the crucifixion, and the burial of our Lord Jesus shook the disciples and the world to its core, quite figuratively, and quite literally. 

So today Jesus has come into our midst. Jesus has come to us to give us a mountaintop experience. Jesus has come to erase, relieve, remove all of your doubts and fears and declare the forgiveness of sins to you again today.

BEHOLD, I AM WITH YOU ALL THE DAYS UNTIL THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE

In our Gospel reading from Matthew chapter 28, Jesus has just done something that stands in sharp contrast to every religion in the world. He has delivered to you the promise of promises. Today, He addresses all of your doubts, all of your fears ... in ways I will never be able to unpack in this one sermon. 

He proclaims the forgiveness for your doubt, for your unbelief or disbelief. 

He proclaims you have eternal life today through baptism and the Lord’s Supper to come, that salvation is yours now and forever. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, Behold, the Lord of Heaven and heaven is with you all the days until the consummation of the age.

As our gospel reading opens, the resurrection of our Lord has just taken place. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb moments before our reading began. There, they saw the angel, and felt the second earthquake in three days. And the angel delivered the greatest news the world has ever heard. There’s no reason to be afraid any more. He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Now go tell the disciples ... behold he is going before you to Galilee. 

So ... while the world plots against them ... trying to cast more doubt on this great Gospel that God has destroyed sin, death, and the devil through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ... the women run to tell the eleven disciples to remind them of what they already knew ... they were supposed to go to a specific mountain in Galilee ... which is probably a two or three day journey from Jerusalem ... and there, Jesus will come to you, and you will see your risen savior. 

When it came true, it must have been so overwhelming ... They fell to their knees, their faces to the ground, and sang out together ... Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.

All the while they doubted.

This must be too good to be true, they are undoubtedly saying! Dead men don’t rise from the grave. How can I possibly believe what we are seeing, what we are hearing? My Lord Jesus Christ is standing in front of me. He was crucified, dead, and buried. I saw it. And if I tell anyone about this, they might crucify me ... literally and figuratively ... for being a Christian.

Are you afraid to speak his name?

Rationalism consumes us. Rationalism is the belief that contact with God can be found through the clarity of your observations or the consistency of your logic. You have not seen Jesus. So how can you believe in him? 

Rationalism, therefore, is nothing more than the worship of your thoughts, and its greatest lie is that you can find God with your mind. It leads us into all kinds of doubt ... about faith, hope, and love. 

Rationalism leads us into all kinds of idolatry. The most notable being all the major religions of the world who try to answer the same question, who is God?

The Muslims call god Allah. They say he is unique, but he cannot be known. Orthodox Jews believe God is personal, all-powerful, eternal, and compassionate. Unorthodox Jews don’t believe any of that. Nonetheless, like the Orthodox, they refuse to call him by name. The Mormons believe that god was once a man who progressed to godhood. They say the father has a physical body, as does his wife. And worthy members of the Mormon church may one day become exalted to godhood themselves, too.
New Agers take that even further, believing everything is god. They say people have unlimited inner power to tap and they just need to discover it. Buddhists: They don’t believe in god at all. It’s all about themselves.

Let’s face it, we love to love ourselves. We love to wield the power of God. We love talking about ourselves, looking out for ourselves. We love to take our own photo, and to proclaim: Look at me! Why else do we call it Facebook? We love individualism and freedom ... we love to be all that we can be ... whatever that means ... and to believe whatever we want to believe. I don’t have to doubt me.

So Peter, standing with the eleven, lifts up his voice and cries out calls us to repentance. This Jesus, you crucified ... but God him raised up ... and of that ... we are all witnesses. Death has no dominion over the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Our Immanuel ... our God with Us ... has risen from the dead. Our Lord Jesus who is one with the Father has come into our midst to free us from our doubt and fear about who he is. ... All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me, he declares.

You may not understand what has just happened, but you don’t need to: Christ is the true God and the true Man. 

As Luther said, these are the words of a Majesty that must be termed Majesty indeed ... because there was nothing before the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is the one who was in the beginning, he is the one who created heaven and earth out of nothing. He is the one who was hovering over the waters. He is one who created it with but a word. It is very good. 

Blessed be the Holy Trinity. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure. 

There is no doubt about this reality. As we make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name above all names, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, Jesus relieves all doubt. In these moments which overcome our doubt, our Lord forgives you of all your sins. 

He accomplished this forgiveness by living the perfect life you couldn’t, by becoming the perfect sacrifice you couldn’t offer, and by rising from the dead for you. 

Through the baptism he poured out upon you, he has united himself with you and is now raising you into eternal life because he is in you and you are in him. 

More than that, he is uniting himself with you in his Supper, so that he can deliver to you the forgiveness of sins. And he continues to proclaim this good news to you to erase your doubts. Now through these means of grace, you are free to love your neighbor and sing ... as we already have ... Come, Thou almighty king. Help us thy name to sing. 

And so we will. 

As Jesus comes into our midst and stands before us today, proclaiming his Gospel at every point of our Divine service, delivering to us a treasure beyond measure, his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, we now know he will never leave us or forsake us. And he is uniquely with us ... now and forever ... until the consummation of the age.

There is no doubt now about it ... Blessed be the Holy Trinity.