Matthew 28:18-20 * May 22, 2005 * “Walking Together” Sunday * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

During the month of May congregations throughout our Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod are observing a special “Walking Together” Sunday. That’s what we’re doing today. This morning we’ll be reflecting upon both the blessings and challenges that are ours as members of a church body most commonly known as “the WELS.”

The reason we call it “Walking Together” Sunday is because that’s what the word “synod” means in the Greek language. We at St. John’s are part of over a thousand congregations who “walk together.” Our bond is a common faith, a common understanding of the Bible as the Word of God, and a common desire to spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

We join collectively in a Synod in order to do together as a body what no single church could do alone. That includes sending out home and world missionaries, supporting and staffing schools that exist for the training of future pastors and teachers, producing Bible-based materials in keeping with God’s Word, and generally being involved in any form of larger ministry that serves or benefits God’s people.

There is a lot of activity within a Synod, but as the video also made clear, there is only one thing that drives us. It’s the same thing that drives us as individual Christians and as a local congregation. Every other activity is subservient to this one thing and exists for the sole purpose of doing this one thing better and more effectively…

The single thing that drives the Church is found in our text for today. It is the “Great Commission” given to us by our Savior, Jesus Christ, nearly 2000 years ago. This is why we come together as a Synod. This is our reason for existence. This is why we are

WALKING TOGETHER: TO CARRY OUT THE GREAT COMMISSION

1. Our glorious direction 2. Our blessed responsibility

The words of our text are actually the traditional Gospel lesson for Trinity Sunday. Clearly taught within Jesus’ words is the doctrine that God is triune, meaning one God yet three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But this text is best known by the title we’ve already mentioned. This is the “Great Commission.” Some of the last recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels, they constitute the specific marching orders He gave to His church and His people. Before we hear them again, let’s consider them in the full, sweeping context of Jesus’ life and ministry…

Approximately thirty three years before Jesus spoke these words, He, the almighty Son of God who has authority over everything in heaven and on earth, broke into our time and space as a baby in Bethlehem. But, of course, He was no ordinary baby. The label first applied to Him by the prophet Isaiah says it all. He is Immanuel, which means: “God with us.”

The reason God condescended to visit our planet is because the world we live in is messed up. What specifically messed up the world and continues to mess up the world is sin. God laid out His expectations in His Word and rightfully demands obedience from His creatures. Sin is any form of disobedience to God, be it in thought, word or deed.

God takes sin far more seriously than we often do, and He laid out the consequences for disobedience. It is not a light sentence: eternal death and eternal separation from Him. Applied personally, this has an impact on every one of us because we all sin. Therefore we’re all deserving of the just punishment that sin demands.

But God in His great love devised a plan to reverse this whole situation. The Baby of Bethlehem grew up to be Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus – as our substitute – never sinned. He kept God’s law for us. And then He paid the penalty for our disobedience to God by voluntarily dying on a cross. Three days later, to show the world that He had satisfactorily completed the work of saving us, He rose from the dead.

The Bible tells us that Jesus remained on this earth forty days after His resurrection. The Book of Acts informs us that He spent this time instructing His disciples. Sometime within this period of instruction Jesus summoned His disciples to a mountain in Galilee where He very explicitly provided them with direction and encouragement and a purpose for existence…

Listen now to the words of our text: ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ 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, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Anyone who has ever read through the Gospels knows that sometimes the words of Jesus are hard to understand. That, of course, is not due to Jesus being obscure; rather it is because we as mere mortals are limited in our understanding and comprehension of what He has to say.

But there is nothing hard to understand about the Great Commission. We are to go and make disciples of all nations. And the way we are to do this is through “baptizing” and “teaching.” In other words, we are to spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ through Word (“teaching”) and Sacrament (“baptizing”). Spreading the Gospel is the role of Jesus’ disciples. And we’re His disciples.

The reason why we must spread the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is because without Christ people are lost and in spiritual darkness. Without Christ people’s lives are ruled by their own trinity: fear, uncertainty and emptiness.

This was impressed upon me by our recent trip to Africa. On the grounds of the Mua Mission compound in Malawi is a museum that we visited. It was divided into three separate buildings, two of which were dedicated to preserving the history of the tribes that lived in that area.

Sometimes poets, philosophers and movie-makers idealize tribal life. At times a picture is painted of tribal people (whether in Africa or other parts of the world) living in a world unencumbered by the cares of materialism or the strains of ambition; primitive but noble people peacefully going about their business and living care-free from day to day.

A trip through that museum says otherwise. What becomes evident very quickly is that the lives of these tribes are marked by two things: fear and superstition. Their lives are regulated around (better, “consumed by”) customs and rituals which are supposed to keep evil spirits away. They dread the possibility of being bothered by their dead ancestors, so they do all kinds of things to appease them. The poets and philosophers are wrong. They do not live in peace. They live in fear and spiritual darkness. Because they live without Jesus.

But they are not the only ones. Many in our own “enlightened” North America also walk in darkness. It may be a more sophisticated and affluent darkness, but it is still spiritual darkness. People may try to counteract this by filling their lives with diversions and possessions and events, but at the end of the day they go to bed with an aching emptiness and a knowledge that something is missing.

The Christian philosopher Pascal talked about the “God-shaped void” that exists within every soul. It is a void which can only be filled by Jesus Christ. Ask anyone who has come to faith from a background of spiritual uncertainty or nothingness and they will tell you that is true. We exist – as individuals, as a church, as a Synod – to fill the void in the lives of people who are empty.

In fact, I believe we can take it even a step farther. As the redeemed who do know that Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Life, to proclaim Jesus Christ and spread the Gospel message is not only the glorious direction Christ has given us, it is also the blessed responsibility He has laid upon us.

Let me share another thought from Africa. Because of our missionaries and the work of our medical clinic, a number of times we had the chance to experience traditional village life. And as we went through these villages and saw people eking out their daily existence by farming with hand tools; as we heard about the orphans left behind in a land where people die young (people who, frankly, wouldn’t die if they had the medical means available to us in the States) and the problems that come to a land ravaged by AIDS; the question that came to me more than once is the same one I will now put to you: Why isn’t that me? How come I wasn’t born into a tribe in sub-Saharan Africa?

Did any of us fill out an order form before we were born stating where and in what circumstances we’d like to be brought into this world? No, we didn’t. So how is it that we are what we are and live where we live and know what we know in the Gospel? One word answer: Grace. Two word answer: Amazing grace.

I ask this question not to make us feel guilty, but to make us aware of how blessed we are. And because we are blessed, God has placed on us a responsibility – a blessed responsibility, a willing responsibility – to be His instruments in spreading the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

And that’s why we exist as individuals, as a congregation, as a Synod. One of our favorite hymns to sing as Lutherans, usually at Reformation time, begins like this: “God’s Word is our great heritage and shall be ours forever.” But let’s not forget the next line: “to spread its light from age to age shall be our chief endeavor.”

Some of you have probably heard that our Synod is facing some financial challenges. It was alluded to in the video. At different times you’ve perhaps heard about missionaries being pulled from the field and cutbacks being made in every one of the four divisions mentioned in today’s video because congregational mission offerings are not keeping pace with our present ministry plans. It’s true. And it’s alarming.

I don’t want to overstate the case. As a church body we’re not in a death spin, but I believe we are in a critical place. We’re at a time that calls for wisdom, examination, introspection and prayer as we look at the way in which we are going about our Father’s business. And certainly we are at a time when many, many Gospel opportunities at home and abroad are being put on hold

Consequently, the purpose of this “Walking Together” Sunday is not so much to raise money, but to raise awareness of who we are and how blessed we are with the confidence that God’s people will respond. Together, we are doing vitally important work as a Synod. I’ve talked about Africa. Through our mission offerings we are there in Africa, and our missionaries (both African and American) are delivering people from the darkness that besets them. We’re in many other places as well. For this we praise God that He is using us for His purposes!

But we could be doing more. That statement is not meant to be guilt-motivation or emotional manipulation. It is meant to be encouragement to the Redeemed.

So what can we do? As individuals we can pray and contribute to the degree that we can. As a congregation, we must continue to sift everything we do through the sieve of the Great Commission and support the ministry God has laid before us. As a Synod, let us ask that God will use us mightily to do things together that we can’t do separately.

We sometimes hear of individuals referred to as being driven. Perhaps that should be our prayer and the thought on which we’ll end today. May God make us individually, congregationally and synodically an army of people driven by the Great Commission; driven to reach out to others because, God in His grace, reached out to us. Amen.