Worshipping
Jesus — Extraordinary
It happened on Easter morning. In the wee dawn hours, Mary
Magdalene and another Mary make their way to the tomb where the body of their
crucified Lord had been placed two days before. But when they arrive, they find
the tomb empty. An angel tells them that Jesus has been raised from the dead,
and as they are heading back to share this extraordinary news with the other
disciples, Jesus suddenly appears and greets them. Immediately, the two Marys
fall down and worship him. Jesus then tells them, “Don’t be afraid; go and tell
my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Today’s gospel reading
presents the rest of the story.
The scene opens on a mountain in Galilee where the
remaining eleven disciples have assembled in anticipation of seeing Jesus
again. When Jesus joins them on the mountain, some doubt that it is really him.
Others, however, worship him just as the two Marys had done earlier. This is
extraordinary. You might expect such behavior from the ancient Greeks and
Romans, with all of their gods and goddesses, with all their divine heroes and
Caesars, but not monotheistic Jews. Jews don’t worship human beings, even
extraordinary human beings, because worship is reserved for God alone.
Nevertheless, they worship Jesus with no sense that they have abandoned their
monotheistic faith. Clearly, they have come to understand that Jesus, though
clearly a human being, belongs to the unique identity of the one true God. He
is not just the Messiah, the anointed son of David; he is, in fact, the Son of
living God.
All Authority
— Extraordinary
Equally extraordinary are the words that Jesus speaks. Listen to all of the alls. “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 all that I have commanded you.” (28:18).
All authority, all nations, all
commandments.
What a massive, sweeping, all-encompassing claim.
Jesus doesn’t just possess some authority; he possesses all authority, without remainder. Moreover, this authority is not
just heavenly authority, it is earthly authority as well. In other words,
Jesus’ authority encompasses all spheres of human life, not only the spiritual,
but the political, the economic, and the social spheres as well.
Yet, we live in a world that has learned to
separate the church from the state, the religious from the secular, faith from
knowledge. Consequently, Jesus is only granted influence over a part of life,
not the whole of it. He is relegated to the realm of personal opinion and
private devotion, and barred from the public square.
For example, notice that when Jesus appears in Time magazine, he appears in the
religion section, not the section on world affairs. That’s where Jesus
supposedly belongs in our increasingly global and pluralistic world. Jesus
belongs in the religion textbooks, next to the other great leaders of the
world’s religions, alongside the likes of Moses and Mohammad, Buddha and
Confucius. Our world is comfortable with that sort of Jesus; that sort of Jesus
is safe. Unfortunately, more and more Christians have also become increasingly
comfortable with that sort of Jesus.
But that is not the Jesus we meet in today’s
gospel, the Jesus that claims all authority in heaven and on earth. Nor is it
the Jesus early Christians proclaimed. When the first Christians traveled
throughout the Roman Empire enduring much hardship, they were not proclaiming a
new religion or a new private spiritual experience. Had this been all that they
were up to, they might have been belittled, but they would never have been
persecuted. After all the Greco-Roman world was a consumer of religions and
spiritualities, and they had room for more. Instead, the early Christians were
proclaiming that Jesus is Lord of all. And you know what that means. If Jesus
is Lord, then Zeus isn’t. If Jesus is Lord, then Isis isn’t. And if Jesus is
Lord, then Caesar isn’t. In short, if Jesus is Lord, then all other lords—be
they religious, ideological, or political—are not. If Jesus is Lord, then we
owe our whole allegiance to him.
