Commissioning the faint hearted

Mark 16: 9 - 15

....he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation".

Mark in this last portion of his gospel focuses on the commissioning of the disbelieving disciples - those who were told that Jesus was alive. Jesus then appears to the Eleven himself and rebuked them for their lack of faith. This situation seems to resonate with our own experiences. Even those of us who have known Jesus find it difficult to trust when we are challenged to move out of our comfortable paradigms. Many times the ways of Jesus will seem strange to us and we are hesitant to trust and believe when Jesus challenges us to see the 'new thing' that is happening. Perhaps it is because we sometimes allow our sadness, our losses, like the disciples did, to color our perceptions.

Jesus does not seem too surprised by all this. He rebukes the disciples but then gives them the mandate to "go into all the world and preach the good news". We read about a similar situation in Matthew 28, just before Jesus gave the Great Commission. "When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted" (28: 17). This is encouraging for us as we think about our own lack of faith and our own slowness to believe when Jesus leads us in new directions. But - his patience prevails and he does not give up on us. In fact, I find this truly comforting. That Jesus, knowing our slowness of heart and spiritual blindness, will continue to "commission" us. He knows the frailty of our faith. He knows it is a journey we embark on that sometimes hits the 'slough of despond' and the 'mountain of fear' before reaching the 'holy city'. And in the Lord's love, he corrects us, and he continues to see the growing seed of faith within us and trusts us enough to invite us to be his witnesses in this world.

That is amazing grace.