Christ is risen. That is the good news of Easter. Jesus has defeated the powers of sin and death. On that first Easter morning something unique took place. Jesus had been crucified and buried. His body had been tortured and broken. But on Easter morning he rose from the dead.

As I say, it was absolutely unique. People had been raised from the dead before. There are Old Testament examples of the dead being raised. There are examples in the New Testament of Jesus raising the dead. But what happened with Jesus was altogether different from that. In the instances where people are raised from the dead, it is a matter of them being brought back from death to life.

They come back with a mortal body; they are still subject to all the characteristics of being human. They will be subject to the illnesses we all face, and old age and they will have to face death again one day. But when Jesus rose from death it was unique. Jesus didn’t come back from the dead; he went through death and came out the other side.

His body was no longer a mortal body, his body was now immortal, and he has risen never to die again. The resurrection was a unique event. It took a bit of believing for the disciples. He had told them that he would rise from the dead, but after the horror of the crucifixion they had lost all hope.

Their experience like the experience of all people was that death is the final curtain, the end of the show. Their hopes were dashed. It was not until they saw Jesus alive again that they believed. Even then Matthew tells us that some doubted, they found it difficult even to believe what they saw with their own eyes. Sometimes today people struggle with doubts about the resurrection.

I do not want to dwell on that this morning only to say that we have it on the reliable evidence of those early followers of Jesus, that he arose. They saw him alive on a number of occasions. They became so sure in their minds of this fact that they went out and preached the gospel across the world, beginning in Jerusalem, boldly preaching the message in the very place where Jesus had been condemned and crucified. We have the testimony of many witnesses who knew for sure that Jesus had risen; Jesus was alive.

What we will think about this morning are the words of Jesus that come at the close of Matthew’s gospel, the words we call ‘the great commission’, Matthew 28 v 18-20. In those verses Jesus makes a rightful claim, he gives an instruction, and he makes a promise. We will think about those three things together.

First then Jesus makes a rightful claim. ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’ When Jesus came into the world in the incarnation, he had emptied himself. He had come as a vulnerable baby. He had taken on much of the limitation entailed in being human. He experienced weariness; he needed sleep. He could only be in one place at a time. But the risen Lord has all power and authority.
We see something of this in the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances. He appears and departs at will. He can appear in a room where the door is securely locked. There is something different about the risen Jesus. On a number of occasions when he appears to his disciples after his resurrection, they have difficulty recognising him. The couple on the road to Emmaus walk for miles talking with him before they realise that it’s Jesus. Mary thought he was the gardener. Yes there is no doubt that it is Jesus. He bears the mark of the nails and the spear wound.

But it is an immortal Jesus, a glorified Jesus. He tells his followers that all authority in heaven and earth are his. It will not be long before they see Jesus departing this world for heaven, but with a firm promise that he will return. The risen Jesus has received the glory and authority that he had with the father before the world was made. It is with this authority that he gives his followers his instruction.

‘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.’
The instructions that he gave to the disciples in Galilee are the instructions that he gives to his followers everywhere today.

In these instructions of course Jesus gives us the big picture. They embrace all the teaching of Jesus. They embrace the whole world. It is a big picture that helps us to see the mission of the whole worldwide church in context. But it also provides a framework to give us direction and purpose as a little local church.

Christ calls us to go on preaching the gospel. His purpose for the church is one of making disciples and baptising them in the name of the God who is three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He calls us to teach all the things he taught. There in Galilee Jesus tells his disciples to continue to do what they have seen him do in his earthly ministry.

Notice that Jesus does not call us to preach a superficial, shallow gospel. It is a gospel that requires repentance. It is a gospel that requires obedience. Jesus calls men and women to trust and obey.

But he gives the command because he is the one with the authority to send us. Sometimes we are tempted to feel that we have little significance in our world. Walking up the High Street on our march of witness on Friday, it was tempting to feel that we had little relevance amid all the activity going on. But we went, because we could go in the name of Jesus, in the name of the one who has all authority in heaven and earth.

In our families, in our places of work, we need not feel intimidated, we need on feel ashamed of our faith, it is a faith in the one who has all authority. He calls us to share the good news of Easter, to invite people to freely accept the authority of the loving God who came to earth to share our humanity and to restore us to a right relationship with himself.

And it is a gospel that we are called to share with everyone. People do not find it easy to transcend the barriers of race. Going to other lands, trying to share the gospel with people of different cultures has never been an easy of popular pastime.

In 1792 when William Carey was challenging his fellow Baptists to take the great commission seriously, he found it difficult to get a hearing. In our day, we do not have to go to the other side of the world to find people of other cultures who need to hear the gospel. They live in the same streets as we do. They send us emails. They even come on our church premises. Jesus challenges us today to enlarge our vision, to go in his name to share the good news of his love.

Finally Christ gives a promise. ‘Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ He has promised to be with us always. The story of the church is the story of Christian people who have known the reality of that promise. Christ is with us. In the coming months, here at Clarence road we will be looking through the book of Acts. We will be seeing how the first Christians, sometimes against overwhelming odds found the reality of Christ’s presence with them as they took the gospel to the world around them.

But you and I can also know the reality of Christ’s presence with us. He has given us his Spirit to guide and strengthen us. He gives us of his grace, both for ourselves and to pass on to others.

To be honest, we are not always conscious of his presence. Sometimes we grieve the Spirit. Sometimes because we are working to a sinful of selfish agenda we shut him out of our lives. But he has promised to be with us. If we have shut him out, he promises that if we open the door to him in repentance he will come in and share fellowship with us.

The risen Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth.

As his followers he calls us to serve him by spreading the good news of the gospel in all of the world, of making disciples and seeing lives and communities transformed.

Christ has risen that he might never die again. He has promised to be with us always, to never fail us or forsake us.

This is the joyful news of Easter.

Amen.

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