B Cycle – Feast of the Holy Trinity 24

Mt.28:16-20

The eleven went to Gallilee, to the mountain which Jesus had ordered them, they saw him and worshipped but doubted.  Imagine yourself as a disciple, on that mountain because Jesus wants you there. He knows you are conflicted, doubting, confused, and yet believing. Six weeks ago, He was crucified on Mt. Calvary, but He had risen and has appeared to them.  Imagine the confusion because everything you know about your faith and the Messiah, has been misunderstood.  How do you now begin to change how you live out your faith since it seems to have missed informing you about God’s desire for you. You and the other disciples have worshipped and yet had doubts, not about Jesus, but because they misunderstood what God was freeing them from – the penalty of sin. 

We know they eventually understood and did go out and made disciples of all the nations, proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah with signs and wonders.  When and how did their doubt turn into certainty.  When did their fear and confusion become a purpose that they must fulfill?  Something was holding them together after His crucifixion because they could have just given up all hope.  If that something was not there, they would have scattered and returned to their former lives.  Yet they remained together, huddled in fear for their lives, uncertain about their future. 

The fact Jesus appeared to them on that first day of the week and breathes the Spirit upon them was significant in their willingness to wait for more revelations.  That event implanted the Spriit within them and created a hunger, a desire to discover what the past three years and His resurrection meant for them.

That first appearance after His resurrection gave them hope even though they doubted.  Did they now begin to believe He would rejoin them on the mission? But this time Jesus would be indestructible, and He would restore Israel?  We do not know what was going on in their minds at that moment, but we do know they would gain more insights after Pentecost.  But these encounters with the risen Jesus, even amid the doubts, give us a strong indication of how to grow in our own understanding and how to remove any doubts we may have about our destiny.

We must realize God is offering us more than we are experiencing.  God desires for us to do more than just follow the dictates of our faith; He desires to remove that defect within our hearts which compels us to doubt God’s goodness.  A defect that motivates us to do all we can to ensure we are pleasing to God. That desire to please God drives us to depend on the law and external rituals which we believe we must do to please God. 

What we fail to recognize is God is pleased with us and has equipped us for holiness by sending us Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  What Jesus knew they need was to experience that “power from on high” which accomplishes a transformative change in us.  A change in our understanding about giving God our hearts not our obedience.  We know we will never be pleasing to God until we allow the Spirit to change our hearts, renew our minds and give us a new vision of discipleship.

Jesus said He would send us the Spirit who would guide us to all holiness.  The Spirit would reveal Jesus and that revelation would open our minds to the reality of “Jesus dying for our sins.”  Jesus said the Spirit would glorify Him. Jesus also said the “… Spirit does not speak on its own but only what He hears will be disclosed to us” (Jn.16:13).   An encounter with the Spirit is essential for us to become new creations in Christ.

Jesus said He only reveals to us what the Father reveals to Him and that He came to show us the Father.  Do you see the path to holiness is not by an intellectual pursuit of all things God, but it begins with an encounter with one person of the Trinity.  An encounter with Jesus will reveal the Father. An encounter with the Father will result in Him pouring the Spirit upon us and filling us with His love.  The Spirit will open our minds to understand the scriptures and will speak only what He hears from Jesus.  That Spirit will motivate our worship, give us direction, and lead us to Jesus.

Jesus will take what we offer Him, bless it, and transform us so we feel the love and mercy of the Father.  The entire Trinity is waiting for us to begin a journey of moving our faith from our heads to our hearts.  Once we say yes to Jesus and begin that journey, we will never doubt God’s goodness. We will know what His desire is for us to be free of doubt, fear and free us to worship like David and dance before our God. 

God desires our hearts, our minds, and our souls.  All in not just on Sunday but every day, every minute until discipleship becomes a lifestyle.  It will no longer be a quest to please God but a quest to become who God created us to be – sons and daughters who exhibit in our lives the person of Jesus.