Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

Once more, happy feast of the resur­rec­tion of Jesus! I hope you are still enjoy­ing the bless­ings and grace of the resur­rec­tion? As the psalm­ist says, it is the Lord’s mak­ing. It is mar­vel­lous in our eyes. Cer­tainly, the Jews regret­ted their action, see­ing the out­come of the cru­ci­fix­ion of Jesus. If they knew what would have been the after­math of their plot to kill Jesus, I sup­pose they would have thought twice (cf. Acts 3:17). In his second volume, Luke provides us with a detailed account of the mis­sion­ary cum pas­tor­al activ­it­ies of the apostles after the resur­rec­tion and ascen­sion of Jesus. Unlike the instruc­tion in Mat­thew 10:5–6, the Gos­pel can now be taken out­side the ter­rit­ory of Israel (cf. Matt 28:19–20). God’s gift can­not be mono­pol­ized. Fol­low­ing the ascen­sion of Jesus, the first offi­cial act of the Elev­en apostles was to replace Judas Iscari­ot (cf. Acts 1:15–26). Hav­ing done this, they remained in pray­er as instruc­ted by Jesus until the great day of divine empower­ment (cf. Acts 2:1–13). The fruits and effects of Christ’s resur­rec­tion are gradu­ally unfold­ing. Those fruits are recor­ded espe­cially in the Acts of the Apostles. And those fruits will be unfol­ded in the great commissioning.

The Great commissioning

“As the Fath­er has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). Imme­di­ately after the greet­ing, fol­lowed the great com­mis­sion­ing. Once resur­rec­ted, Jesus appeared to his dis­ciples and com­mis­sioned them to con­tin­ue what he had star­ted (cf. also Matt 28:18–20). Jesus, the One sent by the Fath­er is now the Sender. As the Fath­er sent him (cf. John 3:17), he is now send­ing his dis­ciples (cf. John 17:18). Like Jesus, they must remain faith­ful to their mis­sion. To be noted is that in this com­mis­sion­ing or send­ing, the three per­sons of the God­head are involved. As the Fath­er sent Jesus, so Jesus sends his dis­ciples, fur­nish­ing them with the Holy Spir­it (cf. John 20:21–22). After the com­mis­sion­ing, Jesus for­ti­fied them by breath­ing unto them, say­ing “Receive the Holy Spir­it. If you for­give the sins of any, they are for­giv­en them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22–23). With these words, Jesus sealed the com­mis­sion­ing. The dis­ciples can now begin their mis­sion without fear.

Conclusion

“Jesus did many oth­er signs in the pres­ence of his dis­ciples, which are not writ­ten in this book. But these are writ­ten so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Mes­si­ah, the Son of God, and that through believ­ing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31). Without wait­ing for people to start spec­u­lat­ing on the pur­pose of his doc­u­ment­a­tion, John did that him­self. Who­ever is read­ing this Gos­pel should do that with the inten­tion of com­ing to faith. John expects his read­ers to have etern­al life by believ­ing in God after read­ing about Jesus and his mis­sion. There is no need search­ing for the book or books con­tain­ing those ‘oth­er things’ Jesus did that are not writ­ten in this very book. For John, the things writ­ten in this book are enough to lead one to faith and there­fore, to etern­al life.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the Second Sunday of Pascha © is found in vol. III pages 220–227. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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