Matthew 28:16-20

 ASCENSION OF THE LORD – YEAR A

Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini

Happy Easter! 

When we get to the end of a book, the story is over, but not so with the gospel. When the end of the gospel is reached, a new story begins. Everything that has come before it is a preparation for this story that starts with Easter and will end at the end of human history.

Today, we read the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew. We will note that it is precisely after these last verses that the history of the Church begins. Unlike Luke and John, who narrate the manifestations of the Risen One in Jerusalem, Matthew presents the Master's meeting with the disciples in Galilee. 

Before the meeting with the disciples in Galilee, Matthew narrated the manifestation of the Risen One to the women when Jesus went to meet the women who had gone to the tomb, and he said, ‘jáirete’ - ‘rejoice.’ They come up, embrace his feet, and adore him. Then Jesus tells them, "Do not be afraid; go announce to my brothers…”. –How beautiful is this gesture of Jesus… these disciples who had disappeared and they had abandoned him… and Jesus says, ‘my brothers’… “… tell them to go to Galilee and they will see me there.” 

The question immediately appears: Why in Galilee? Where will they see him on the mountain? And what mountain is it? 

Let's listen: 

The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. The eleven disciples went to Galilee. 

They are eleven; they should be twelve. It is a wounded group; Jude abandoned them because he thought that Jesus was dangerous for religion and the life of his people. He had cultivated his convictions—the ones he had been taught in catechesis— and his dreams, which must have been dreams of glory. He was wrong and ended up delivering Jesus to religious authorities. But neither were the other eleven models of fidelity. 

This group is marked by weakness, fears, and the inability to understand and follow the Master. This is the community to which the Risen One entrusts the mission of changing the world—a fragile, weak group. From the beginning, the Church is a community formed in that way, with people who are indeed in love with Jesus but very weak. A community that runs away denies him, believes, has doubts ... 

We realize that these "eleven" are us. But these eleven see the light of the Risen One. Here, we are shown how our eyes must also be opened because if we do not see the Risen One, we will not have the option for the new humanity he proposes. Above all, where is the place where they make this experience of the encounter with the Risen One? It is in Galilee. The other evangelists say they went to Jerusalem, but Matthew is not chronicled here. He is showing how you come to see the Risen One. 

The first thing to do is go to Galilee. What does Galilee mean? It is the place where the disciples first met Jesus and then were with him for three years. Virtually all of Jesus' public life developed around that lake in Galilee. There, Jesus showed the true face of God and the face of the successful man, the Son of God, and the beautiful person. Galilee refers to the experiences that the disciples have had. 

If you don't have this experience with Jesus, the face of God and the successful man are not contemplated, and if this first step is not taken, the Risen One is never seen. Some always want proof that Jesus is risen and only then go to understand some things of the Gospel... NO. First of all, one has to start in Galilee, with the knowledge of this Jesus that has been presented and made himself known for three years. It is not enough to go to Galilee, that is, to understand this Jesus of Nazareth. It is necessary to ‘climb the mountain.’ It is there that the Risen One summons. On the plain, you cannot 'see' it. You have to climb the mountain. Jesus does not say to climb a 'mountain,' anyone. NO. ‘To the mountain that he has indicated.’ And what mountain has he indicated? 

From the beginning of his gospel, the evangelist Matthew presents us with this mountain where Jesus leads all who want to know his proposal of a new man. It is the mountain of the Beatitudes. After you have met Jesus and all that he has said and done, you must choose to climb that mountain, that is, accept his proposal to become a new person. Many still want proof that Jesus rose first and only then climbed the mountain of his beatitudes to accept his proposal. No way. It’s the opposite. First, you must take his beatitudes and life proposal to love and give oneself wholly, as he has done. Only later can one see that whoever accepts these beatitudes —that Jesus has incarnated ahead of us—can enter his glory. 

If you pretend to see him in glory but have not accepted his proposal, you have not gone up the mountain; you can never see the Risen One. We can make a comparison with the relationship between lovers. It is not that the young woman must be certain that life with that young man will undoubtedly be fabulous. NO. First, she should search rationally, and only at the end will she see that the option has been good after having it. If you don't go up the mountain, your eyes will remain closed with the gaze that you must have on the goods of this world, and therefore, you will cling to them, you will accumulate them... and you will never be able to see the glory of those who have detached themselves from them. You have to donate them first, and only later will your eyes be opened. 

And it is to these disciples that climbed the mountain —certainly with much effort—that "when they saw him, they fell." They ‘see’ him. The verb used in Greek is very important; It is not 'blepo,' which is the material gaze, what everyone has. Here, it is the verb ‘orao.’ It means that their eyes are opened only after climbing that mountain, and they see 'beyond what is verifiable.' They recognize that in Jesus is the truth about God and man. 

But then the gospel says that "some doubted." What is it about? We are a little surprised by these doubts because we ask ourselves how they could doubt if they had the Risen One in front of them... they had him in front of their eyes. Let's be careful because Matthew is not narrating a material fact. 

The resurrection cannot be verified with the senses. The eyes that see the Risen Lord are the eyes of the believer, those who went up the mountain. It is the vision of those who have already accepted the beatitudes of the Master. What do these doubts mean? It means: 'Do I follow him or not?' 

This must always be remembered in our faith. Jesus is not worried about our doubts. They are natural and go hand-in-hand with faith. Most worrisome are the ‘certainties’ born from the conviction of having the rationality and logic of the option for faith. NO.

We have reasonableness, not rationality. The resurrection of Christ or our faith cannot be 'proved.' When a person has these ‘certainties, ’ they often try to impose on others the fear that, if one asks questions or doubt arises, there is fear that these ‘certainties’ will collapse. From there to fanaticism, there is a step. NO. We must be careful with these fanatical certainties, but not with doubts and questions. 

I would also say that there are certain certainties of the one who proclaims his atheism, and also these certainties worry because they allow him to settle, to resign in indifference and say, ‘I already have my convictions; what counts is what I see and what I verify and the rest does not interest me’... This person does not allow questions or doubts that lead one to seek a higher sense of life passionately. Like the previous ones, these certainties also lead to aggressiveness and fanaticism. I would say: 'Blessed doubts' ... the loyal, honest, sincere doubts. Doubts of the one who passionately searches for the truth and is not content with fragile explanations, with ready-made sentences... "everyone thinks the same." NO. Honest doubts always lead to searching. 

The believer must also know that the parasite of skepticism will always remain in him. But even so, the Risen One is present and loves us, just as we are. We cannot be otherwise... we are ‘people of little faith’... who trust Jesus, certainly, but only up to a certain point. In the doubts of these first disciples, we find this weariness in believing... the weariness of a faith that requires a new life. We prostrate ourselves before the Lord but with many hesitations. 

Let us now listen to the great mission that the Risen One entrusts to these disciples. That is us... disciples of little faith: 

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” 

The Risen One approaches these eleven because he wants to show them the true face of God. The God they had imagined was a distant, severe God that instilled fear. NO. Jesus approaches because he wants to show them the true face of God. This approach is even scandalous because he questions all our convictions about him. 

The Christian God is a God who loves to be with people and makes all barriers fall, the barriers that separate people from him. Let's remember how the temple in Jerusalem was built. It consisted of a series of obstacles that prevented people from seeing the face of God. It was believed that God lived in the temple in Jerusalem. Remember that everyone could enter the esplanade of the temple. Then, there was a barrier that blocked the pagans, and only the Jews could enter. However, a little further on, another barrier prevented women's passage to the sanctuary. Then, another barrier was before the sanctuary, and men could not enter there either, only the priests. And then another barrier, the temple veil, also blocked the priests, and only the high priest could enter once a year on the day of ‘Kippur.’ He entered with great fear because his mentality was always that of a distant and severe God. 

At Easter, all these barriers have disappeared, and now we can contemplate the face of God. There is no longer a veil that prevents us from seeing him because he approaches each of us in this community of disciples. And this God becomes uncomfortable because he becomes poor, not rich as we have imagined... a God to whom people should always give something... NO. He is poor because he donates everything. And this shakes all our images of God because if He is poor, we too must become poor; if we retain something, we are no longer children of this God. A God who is willing to forgive even the greatest sinner and willing to accept all our mediocrities. He loves us as we are. 

What does Jesus say to these eleven? "I have been given full authority." He is the son of man of whom the prophet Daniel speaks in chapter 7 when the Father (God) gives this ‘son of man’ a universal kingdom. What kind of authority, of power, has been given to Jesus? Not the one the Evil One wanted to give him, that is, the powers of this world... NO. God's only power is to give life, to make people live. Jesus has renounced all the powers of this world because they are the opposite of divine life, that is, love. 

The God who has manifested himself in Jesus of Nazareth does not strike fear, does not reject anyone, does not humiliate people. He approaches the person only so that people may live and share his own life. And what does he do with this power? How does He use this power that has been given to him, the power to give life? He does this through these eleven and tells them what they are called to do. And he first says 'go' - 'go to the whole world.' It is a verb of movement, even of physical movement, and they must move to announce to all the towns. 

But it is not just a physical movement that they must do; they must come out of all their traditions and all their convictions to go to meet the people to whom they must give that life that Jesus came to bring to the world. What should they do? These eleven (that is us) are entrusted with a triple mission. The first thing: "Make disciples of all peoples." ‘Make disciples’… Who were the disciples in Jesus' time? They were those who learned from the master. We always remain ‘disciples’ of the Latin ‘discere’ = to learn. We are never ‘teachers’. 

We are called to invite all people to unite with this one Master, who is Christ. Disciples were not only going to learn a lesson from the master but also lived with the teacher. These eleven are sent to the world so that all people join the school of this Master and live by his side; they make the experience of being with him. And they must go in search of everyone, to all nations. 

That is, to all pagan nations, the ones that, according to the mentality of the time, were the most distant from God. And for the Hebrews, this was unheard of. The expected messiah was to subdue all pagan nations, dominate them, subjugate them, and exploit them. What happens is that Israel does not understand the meaning of their choice. It was not supposed to be a privilege to take advantage of the pagans. They had not been chosen to glory in their superiority but to serve. 

No vocation is to be superior to others but always to be at the service of others. Israel had been chosen to serve the pagan people. They were to bring the promised blessings to Abraham to all peoples. Let us remember what God had said to Abraham: "In you, all the families of the earth will be blessed." 

This is the great mission of Israel: to bring these blessings to all nations and peoples. This mission is carried out through the eleven that—I repeat—are us. 

Second commission: "Baptizing". It does not mean administering the sacrament of baptism. This is undoubtedly important, but what does “baptize all peoples consecrating them to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” mean? 'Baptize'. The Greek term ‘baptizei’ means to immerse. In Greek, two verbs mean ‘to immerse’. One is ‘bapto,’ and the other ‘baptizo’. ‘Bapto’ means to immerse and then take it out, like when I wash a dish, I immerse it in the water and then take it out. The verb ‘baptizei’ means to immerse and leave inside. We do this when we prepare pickles: we 'baptize' them in oil and vinegar and leave them there. This is what we are invited to do, not just comply with a baptismal rite, which is very important and a sign of immersion in the life of the Trinity. He who is baptized in the Trinity engaged in this life, which is love and only love, enters into the life of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then, this immersion is celebrated with that sign, with that rite of baptism. 

The third mission: "Teach them to fulfill all I have commanded you." Therefore, the mission is not to preach new doctrines but to reveal the face of God and the face of man that we have seen in Jesus of Nazareth. So, it's about teaching practice. And what is there to practice? What he has taught, his command. And that is the commandment of love. How does one prepare and train? By word: what Jesus has said is announced, but this announcement must be made through the lives of these envoys. 

When a pagan meets a Christian, the announcement is made through how the person behaves. Let us remember what Peter says in his first letter, second chapter, when he says, "Live a blameless life among the pagans; so when they accuse you wrongly of any wrong, they may see your good works, and give glory to God on the day he comes to them” (1 Pe 2:12). It is an honest life, irresistible beauty. If the Christian announces his life, all who see him will say, ‘This is an honest person,' the beauty that shines in the face of Jesus of Nazareth shines in him. 

We are called to make this announcement this way: the announcement of a whole new life and humanity. The evangelist Matthew also reminds us of what Jesus said to his apostles: "You are the light of the world. May your light shine in front of people so that seeing your beautiful works (the translation often renders as 'good' works... NO) …beautiful works give glory to God”. These beautiful works announce the new man that a new man has been born into the world. 

Jesus says to the disciples and all of us: Feel responsible for life, for the happiness and salvation of your brothers and sisters. The Gospel of Matthew concludes with a wonderful phrase of the Risen One: "I will be with you always, until the end of the world." He will always be with us until the end of human history. 

This is the God who is not far away. He is the God who is always by our side. Today is the Feast of the Ascension. We consider the image of ascension presented in Luke's Acts of the Apostles and in Matthew's Gospel's conclusion. Both have used an understandable image in the Hellenistic world: God, who lives in heaven and, therefore, enters into God's glory, was presented with this image of ascending into heaven. 

The evangelist Matthew presents the ascension of Jesus, that is, the entry of Jesus into glory, not as an exit to heaven but as a descent into this community of disciples to enter the world and present with them the new and beautiful face of God, the beautiful face of the successful person, of the one who is a child of God. 

I wish you all a good Easter and a good week.