With Us Always

Matthew 28: 16-20

The weeks since Easter have brought us a number of stories about Jesus’ time on earth after the resurrection, leading up to his ascension. During that time we have heard the various ways that Jesus prepared the disciples for the time to come, when he would no longer be on earth with them.

He told them about the work that lay ahead for them.

He told them that the Holy Spirit would come to help them. He reminded them over and over to not be afraid, to abide in God’s love, in his peace.

In our Gospel text today, this Sunday after Pentecost, this Trinity Sunday, we hear the closing words of the Gospel according to Matthew, where Jesus meets the disciples on a mountain in Galilee. We are told that they worship him, but that some doubted. We are reminded that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus”, and then Jesus gives them what has come to be known as The Great Commission.

And his last words, according to Matthew’s gospel, are these: Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

On this Trinity Sunday, it’s good for us to consider together how it is that the Triune God is with us always. Because it is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who is with us always, who has been with us from the beginning, who came to us in the flesh, and who abides with us always as our advocate, our comforter.

We heard the Genesis story of Creation as our Old Testament reading for today. You may not realize it, but this is a Trinitarian story. This creation story provides us with specific reassurance that from the beginning, God in three persons is with us. In the beginning God creates. The Spirit of God moves over the waters, even before there was heaven and earth, before there was light, before there was land to separate the waters from the sky. And God brings each creation into being by speaking it into being.

The Word of God.

The Logos, which is Jesus Christ, God the Son.

This is confirmed in the beginning of the Gospel of John – the New Testament counterpart to this Genesis beginning of the Old Testament. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Jesus the Word of God.

So in the beginning there is God, there is the Word of God, there is the Spirit of God. The trinity, the triune God. In the beginning.

Then when God became flesh and dwelled among us, the triune God was there. At Jesus’ baptism, God’s voice proclaimed pleasure with the beloved Son, as the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

And now, since Jesus, God the Son, has ascended to heaven, he intercedes for us with God the Father. The ascended Christ is fully human, still, as much as he is fully divine.

And so he perfects our prayers for us to the Father, and he understands the sorrows and the pains as well as the joys of this world – he understands them first hand. He has experienced them.

And, as he promised, he has not left us orphaned or abandoned. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, has always been with us, and now gives us guidance, and comfort.

Just as the disciples could trust Jesus as they followed him, we can trust the Holy Spirit to always be with us, to be our guide and strength, because the Holy Spirit is God with us, just as Jesus is God with us. The triune God is with us – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told the disciples, I am With You always. I AM – the Words God used in response to Moses when Moses said to God – tell me your name. God said – I AM. Jesus said – I AM With You Always. I AM is God. Emmanuel is God with us. Jesus promised – and delivered – on the Holy Spirit to be with us Always. The Triune God is with us always.

What does this mean for us? Does it place a shield around us from the troubles of the world? Certainly not.  Or, as the apostle Paul liked to say, “By no means!” The apostles and the early Christians went forward into terrible danger, torture, oppression, death. We are not promised a life free of troubles and pain, any more than they were. What we do know is that pain and suffering, sorrow, and even death do not have the last word – that Jesus has conquered them all.

Jesus said, “In the world you will have distress; you will face difficulties; you will be persecuted. But take heart – I have conquered the world!”

We are offered the peace that sustains us, the grace that redeems us, the love that never ends, from the triune God of mercy, of hope, of love.

I think I am speaking for most of us here today when I say that we often wish and perhaps would even prefer to have that protective shield around us, that magic wand that would make our troubles go away, that would make it all better.

We want to be able to touch the hem of Jesus and make pain go away, touch the hem of Jesus and mend broken relationships, touch the hem of Jesus and heal the sick, make the blind see, repair damaged backs and hips and brains and souls. We know that God’s power can heal, that Jesus healed all who came to him, and we want this healing for ourselves.

We pray for these miracles, don’t we?

We want God to fix what is broken in our selves, in those we love, in our world. Because we believe it is possible, we want to claim it for ourselves. We don’t want to settle for anything less, if we are honest with ourselves and with God.

Into the midst of this, here is the promise that we have been given: I am with you always. I love you, and you are mine. You are my beloved child. There is nothing that can happen to you, and there is nothing you can do, and there is nothing anyone else can ever do to you that can separate you from me, from my love. There is no sorrow you can bring to me, no sin you can hand to me, no worry you can turn over to me, that will ever change my love for you.

I have loved you from the beginning, I love you now, and I will love you to the end of days. My love and peace are not like anything else the world can give.

Abide in my love.

Trust in my Spirit.

Rest in my grace and peace.

These are the gifts of the Spirit that go beyond healing, that go beyond making our mortal lives easier or more comfortable. These are the gifts that give us true rest, true peace, true joy, the gifts that transcend the troubles of the world. These are the true gifts of God, freely given for you, for me, for all of us, for all time.

Even when we cannot see you God, even when your guiding hand can only be sensed with the faintest of touch, even when we cannot see the path ahead, when we do not know where we are going, still we will trust you, because you have told us, Do not be afraid. You have told us, peace be with you. You have told us, I will give you rest.  You have told us….

Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Amen.