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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

September 16, 2022

Feast of Ninian, 430 CE

Invitatory

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

Reading: Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

It’s quite obvious that Matthew wasn’t a journalist. Eleven disciples trek all the way to Galilee and up a mountain, where they rendezvous with Jesus who is nicely and freshly resurrected from the dead… and there, in that penultimate moment, we’re informed that “some of them had doubts.” Who were they? It couldn’t have been that many. Wouldn’t it have been helpful for Matthew to have named them? Just think of the speculation that could then have transpired through centuries of gossipy analysis. I’ll bet Peter was one. Or maybe Thomas, in a revival of his famous role in Luke’s Gospel. Or maybe one of the lesser disciples, whose only distinguishing mention would have been this failure of outright belief.

But Matthew had nothing else to say. It’s an omission that lets us know that he wasn’t interested in giving us an historical record of the events that actually transpired. The function of this statement – that some doubted – isn’t to be taken as a report, as understandable as that might be. This statement serves as a way of letting us know that doubt is intrinsic to true belief. For how can anyone not find something deeply implausible about resurrection? It’s impossible to make sense of it – for if it weren’t impossible, if it were something that we could imagine or picture in great detail, then the resurrection would be little more than a logistical or pragmatic or scientific problem for which we could seek our own solution. And it would cease to be a divine act, something far outside the realm of our ability to explain.

I’m often amazed at the sheer credulity that is evident in how people speak about life after death. It’s as if this is as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Maybe this is simply the language we adopt in the face of death, as a convenient form of avoidance. Or maybe it’s an astounding hubris that we’ve learned to take for granted. (There has always been a thread of triumphalism in Christian proclamation.) But Matthew warns us away from these expressions. Worship can only be true if it retains a strong whiff of uncanniness, when, in completely intangible and indescribable ways, it moves us beyond the borders of the explicable. If we see what we’re supposed to see in this short narration, doubt will be an essential part of the experience. Matthew, even at the very end of the Gospel story, reminds us that our dependence on God eludes even the words to give it distinct form. Doubt reflects our inadequacy to the task.

And yet, this isn’t a weakness. For it’s this doubt – and not belief – that then frames up the beauty and power of Jesus’ final statement that he will be with us “always, to the end of the age.” Our belief is not primary; God’s assurance is.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory

for ever and ever. Amen.