Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ These final words from Jesus to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel sum up our call as Jesus’ disciples today. We are to go and make disciples of all nations, that is we are to reach people across the world, in each and every community with the good news of Jesus and call them to follow him. We are Jesus’ disciples. We are his followers, his friends. He is our teacher and we are his students. Jesus calls us to invite others to follow him, to come and know him as Master and friend. We are not called to only tell others about Jesus. But we are called to make disciples, other followers of Jesus. Lots of people know about Jesus. The Pharisees knew about Jesus, but they did not follow him; instead they had him crucified. Jesus is seeking to bring people to know him (not of him) and to follow him.

The second part of Jesus’ command here is to baptise these people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. These are the three persons of the one God. These are the three persons of God that we hear in our Creed. The Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified.

It can get a bit confusing to talk about three persons of God, but they all are one God. Our main issue with wrapping our heads about this is that we generally talk about individual persons, but we are talking about a collective of persons. But these three persons of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are bound up in one another; they are three persons, but in this one union to be the one God. Each person in this Trinity is fully God, but they are collectively one God, not a group of gods. Why? Look at their names. The Father exists in relation to the Son. The Father becomes a Father only with a son, likewise the Son only becomes the Son to a Father. (Think of our own family relations. I am a son because I have parents, and they are my mum and dad because they have a son.) It’s relational. And the Spirit flows from the relationship of the Father and the Son. They are each God, in their respective persons, but they exist as God in this union of persons. This relationship is at the heart of who God is. God is Trinity. He is a relational being.

That’s a quick summary of the Trinity. But it still leaves us with the question, what does it mean to baptise someone in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Well to baptise is to wash clean a person through water. It represents the death we have died to sin and the new life we rise to in Christ when we come up out of the water. So, to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is to bring them cleansing and renewal to their lives through the work of God. And not just one person of God, but through all of God. We talk about how we come to God through Jesus, or last week at Pentecost we spoke of how God’s Spirit dwells in us. But the truth is that as Christians, followers of Jesus, we are brought into experience and encounter the whole fullness of God. We do not receive only a part of who God is (even if they are still fully God as their one person), but we receive the full relationship of God. And this is the other part of what it means to be baptised in name of the full Trinity of God. To be baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is to be baptised in a loving relationship. To be a Christian is to be in a relationship with God, who is our Lord, Saviour, Creator, and Giver of Life. It is to be invited into a loving relationship with God, but also to exist in that love with his body the church. We are our baptised into a new life of love with God and with one another.

So, we go therefore to make disciples of all nations and baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are called as followers of Jesus to go and invite others to follow Jesus, and to bring them into the fullness of God, into his loving relationship. This is a relationship we share with God, but also a relationship of love we share with one another, the Church. This is our call when we leave this service today. In fact, it is our call now. To help others to come to know the love of God and be caught up in his relationship of love.

However, before we go, I want to point out a few other parts of what Jesus says here in this final instruction to his disciples. Go, therefore. Do you notice the ‘therefore’? Therefore, indicates that we go in response to preceding event, a cause. Let’s look at what Jesus says. ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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.’ We go because Jesus has all the authority of heaven and earth. He is the King over all of creation and the only one with authority over everything in the universe. Think of how in a movie a police officer comes into the crime scene and says stop in the name of the law. They are not the law, but they carry out their duty on instruction of the law and with the authority of the law. Or think of work with your boss. Your boss might have told you to go and tell the team that we are changing our office from using white paper to coloured paper. People might say why should we do that, but then you say the boss has told me to say this. Then the rest of the team listens and follows. Why is that? Because people know that the boss has the authority and the power to do this.

We know that when someone in a position of power commands us, they command us in both their hierarchical position above us, but also with the authority behind their role. You know that you will not be stopped or questioned if you are a worker coming in the name of the boss, or a police officer coming in the name of the law, or maybe in the past in the name of the King. Well we as Christians come in the name of the King of creation, in the God of all creation. We come in his power and authority. He has the authority and the power to send us out to the world because he is the creator of the world.

So, when we go out to our community, to our friends and family and tell them about Jesus, and they probably think ‘what are you doing?’ and maybe you are asking the same questions, remember who has sent you out to the world. The God of the universe, the God whose love and fullness flows in your life is with you. Jesus’ final words to his disciples is ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ God is with us always and the fullness of God Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

On a final note. In this final scene of Jesus and his disciples we see that the disciples worshipped him, but that some doubted. It is unclear whether this means that they were a separate group to the disciples worshipping God, or whether some of the worshipping eleven disciples had doubts. Either way, Jesus’ call to each of the eleven remains the same, regardless of whether they were fully convinced or not. It is hard to think that the disciples stood in the very presence of the risen Jesus could hold any doubts in their hearts. But it reminds us that doubts are real, and that they can come to any of us even at the points when God feels most real and present in our lives. If today you know that you as a Christian are here to worship God, yet you still have your doubts, maybe about him, or his call on your life, know that this is a normal experience. Even the first disciples stood in Jesus’ presence had their doubts. However, Jesus’ command to them, and also to us still remains. And it says to us that it doesn’t matter how strong our faith might feel or how capable we feel about being a disciple, of being a Christian. But rather the most important thing is the full God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is behind us and with us. We go not in our own strength, but in the power of his strength and the fullness of his love. God still used the disciples when they doubted, and God will still use us in our doubts.

So go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.