Some Doubted - (Trinity Sunday)

​But Some Doubted– Matthew 28:16–20

Our Gospel reading today brings Matthew's story of Jesus to its powerful and moving conclusion.

The disciples have travelled north to Galilee, back to where it all began. It was in Galilee that Jesus first called fishermen from their nets and invited them to follow him. It was in Galilee that he taught, healed, welcomed outcasts, and proclaimed the coming of God's kingdom. Now, after the trauma of the cross and the mystery of the resurrection, the disciples find themselves once again in Galilee, gathered on a mountain to meet the risen Christ.

Matthew tells us that when they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.  That brief phrase is both surprising and deeply reassuring. These are not strangers encountering Jesus for the first time. These are his closest followers. They have walked with him for years. They have heard his teaching, witnessed his miracles, and now stand in the presence of the risen Christ. Yet even here, Matthew tells us, some doubted.

Perhaps Matthew includes this detail because he understands something important about the life of faith. Faith is not the absence of doubt. Faith and doubt often travel together. The opposite of faith is not doubt but indifference. Doubt can be a sign that we are taking the mystery seriously. It reminds us that God is always greater than our understanding.

Those first disciples stood between certainty and uncertainty, between worship and questioning. In many ways, so do we.

In the Christisn Calendar, today is also Trinity Sunday. Traditionally, Christians following the litirgical calendar have reflected on Jesus' instruction to baptise "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

But it is important to remember that Matthew is not presenting a fully developed doctrine of the Trinity as later generations of Christians would formulate it. The great creeds and theological definitions would come centuries later.

What we find here instead is something more experiential. We glimpse the living faith of the earliest Christian community. They had come to know the One Divine Reality in three profound ways.

First, they experienced God as the loving Source of all life, the One whom Jesus called Abba, Father. Not a distant ruler in the sky, but the intimate and compassionate ground of all being, whose care extends to every sparrow and every human soul, who according to Jesus earlier in Matthew makes the sun shine on good and bad alike, sending the blessing of rain upon both the righteous and the unrighteous. This is the God of indiscriminate love. 

Second, they experienced God through the humanity of Jesus himself. Matthew's Gospel begins by calling Jesus Immanuel, "God with us." In Jesus they encountered a human life so transparent to the Divine that they sensed the very presence of God shining through his words, his actions, his compassion, and his self-giving love.

Third, they experienced God as Holy Spirit, the living breath of God active within them and among them. The Spirit was not merely an abstract idea but a living presence empowering, guiding, inspiring, and transforming the community.

The doctrine of the Trinity would eventually emerge as the Church's attempt to make sense of these experiences. Christians came to speak of One Divine Reality encountered as Source, Word, and Spirit; as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yet perhaps the deepest truth of Trinity Sunday, whether one is Trinitarian or not, is not a mathematical puzzle about how three can be one. Rather, it is the recognition that the Divine is not distant or static but living, relational, and continually present to us in multiple ways.

Returning to our Gospel reading, Matthew's final scene does more than invite us into a theological debate about the Trinity. It profoundly gathers together many of the central themes that have run throughout the entire Gospel.

Jesus begins by declaring, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

Throughout Matthew's Gospel, questions of authority have appeared again and again. The crowds were astonished because Jesus taught "as one having authority." He healed with authority. He forgave sins with authority. He challenged religious and political powers with authority. But Jesus' authority is unlike the authority of earthly rulers. It is not based on coercion or domination. It is the authority of self-giving love, truth, compassion, and service. The crucified and risen Christ reveals that genuine authority is found not in power over others but in love for others.

Then comes the great commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." 

Notice that Jesus does not tell them to make converts, build institutions, or establish an empire. He tells them to make disciples. Discipleship has been one of Matthew's central themes from the very beginning. When Jesus first called Peter, Andrew, James, and John, he invited them into a way of life. A disciple is simply a learner, a follower, someone who seeks to walk in the footsteps of the teacher.

Throughout the Gospel, Matthew has shown us what that discipleship looks like. It means learning the values of the Sermon on the Mount. It means, letting our yes be yes and our no be no – speaking and living with integrity. It also means loving enemies, forgiving others, seeking justice, practising mercy, trusting God, and putting the kingdom before our own ambitions.   The mission of the Church is therefore not simply to spread beliefs but to nurture people in this way of life.

Thirdly, the scope of that mission is also significant. The disciples are sent to "all nations."

At the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, foreign sages from the East came seeking the Christ child. Throughout the Gospel there are hints that God's compassion reaches beyond every boundary of race, nationality, religion, and culture. Now, at the end, those hints become explicit. The good news is for everyone. Jesus is creating a new trans-national community of faith transcending humanity’s tendency to too narrowly define itself by tribe and nation. 

Then lastly, Matthew's final words also echo the very beginning of his Gospel.

The Gospel opened with the declaration that Jesus would be called Immanuel, "God with us." Now it closes with Jesus saying, "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." The promise of God's presence frames the entire Gospel of Matthew. At the beginning, God is with us in the child of Bethlehem. At the end, God is with us through the living presence of the risen Christ.
Between those two promises lies the whole story of discipleship.

And perhaps that is the deepest message of this passage. The disciples are being sent into an uncertain future. They do not have all the answers. Some are still wrestling with doubt. Soon they will face persecution, hardship, and challenges they cannot yet imagine. Yet Jesus does not promise them certainty. He promises them presence. "I am with you always."

The life of faith is not a journey undertaken alone. We walk it sustained by the Divine Presence that the earliest Christians experienced in three ways, through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Source of life beyond us, the Divine revealed in and through Jesus revealing our own dignity as children of the Divine, and the Spirit of Life within us.

And so Matthew leaves us where every generation of disciples must begin: called to follow, called to learn, called to embody the way of Jesus, and called to trust that whatever lies ahead, we do not walk alone.  For the One who was Immanuel at the beginning of the story remains Immanuel at its end: "Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Amen.