The Great Commission – making Him known

James Ellis from Yarralumla Uniting explores our theme of Making Jesus Known, through the lens of Jesus commission to the disciples (Matthew 28:16-20).

James invites us to explore how the resurrection invites us not into certainty, but into a deeper, evolving relationship with Jesus – one marked by both worship and doubt. As we go out to make Christ known in love, mercy, and justice, we discover the risen Christ anew – present with us, and revealed in others.

Watch James’s sermon or read it below.

They say Easter is the season of joy: Alleluia banners, bright flowers, pastel colours, and the triumphant refrains of “Christ is risen!”

But have you ever noticed what happens after Easter morning, in the stories? The Gospels don’t tie things up with a neat, triumphant bow. There are locked doors. Wounded bodies. Slow recognition. There’s worship – but also doubt. There’s joy – but it’s wrapped in fear and confusion.

The disciples don’t bounce back into life with perfect faith. They hesitate. They question. Some of them worship and still doubt. It turns out resurrection – like most real grace – doesn’t just explain everything. It disorients before it transforms.

Which makes me wonder: what if we’ve misunderstood Easter?

What if resurrection isn’t the end of knowing Jesus, but the beginning of knowing Jesus in an entirely new way?

Matthew tells us, “They worshiped him, but some doubted.”

We read it every year and rush past it, maybe because it makes us uncomfortable. But Matthew doesn’t. He puts it right there at the end of the story. The risen Christ is standing before them – wounded, radiant, alive – and still, some of them doubted.

In our churches, we rarely say it this bluntly, but doubt isn’t the opposite of faith. It’s often the sign that something deeper is happening. That we’re being stretched beyond what we once knew.

The Jesus they followed before: the rabbi, the miracle worker, the teacher, the healer, the crucified one; is now the resurrected one. Familiar, yet utterly different.
They are learning to know Him again. That’s part of what it means to follow Jesus over a lifetime: we keep rediscovering Him.
In suffering.
In silence.
In struggle.
In resurrection.

Even in worship.
Even in doubt.
He still shows up.

Then Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…”

It’s a cosmic claim. The kind of thing you only say if death no longer has the last word. But then He adds, “And remember, I am with you always…” This is the mystery of resurrection: the risen Christ doesn’t retreat into divine power. Christ draws closer in human presence.

This isn’t power that dominates. It’s power that accompanies.

Not a distant Lord, but a companion on the dusty road.
Knowing Jesus in a new way means knowing Him not just as the risen One above us – but as the risen One with us. With us in confusion. With us in fatigue. With us in transition, in endings, in beginnings.

And here’s the grace: He promises to be with us before we do anything. Before they go, before they obey, Jesus says: “I am with you.”

Then comes the sending: “Go therefore and make disciples… baptise them… teach them…”
We’ve often treated this as a task list. But what if it’s more than that? What if this is also the pathway by which we come to know Jesus more deeply?
Mission is not just what we do for Jesus. It’s how we encounter Jesus again and again.

When we listen to someone’s story without rushing to fix it; when we hold space for grief or confusion without needing neat answers; when we risk love, mercy, and justice in real life – that’s when we find Jesus again.

Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the story of a woman in her congregation, called Erin, who had spent years trying to outrun God.

Erin grew up in church but left after too much rejection, especially when she came out.

She told Nadia, “I didn’t stop believing in God – I just stopped believing God could be good.” But then one Sunday, Erin showed up at House for All Sinners and Saints. She sat in the back, arms crossed, waiting to be disappointed. She kept coming, not because she believed everything again, but because something was alive there. Something honest. People prayed like they meant it. They passed the peace like they needed it. They shared communion like they were starving.

Then one Sunday, a man stood up and said he’d relapsed. He was three days sober, barely hanging on. Without thinking, Erin walked over and put her arm around him. She held him while he wept.

Later someone asked her why she did it. She said, “I don’t know. It just felt like… Jesus was in him. And when I touched him, I think I believed again. Or at least – I knew Jesus again.”

Not in a doctrine. Not in a private prayer. But in the trembling body of someone who needed grace.
That’s the paradox.

The more we try to explain Jesus, the less we feel we know Him. But when we step into the work of love, the way of mercy, the path of justice – we suddenly see Him again.

A theologian once said, “God is not an idea to be grasped, but a life to be lived.” I would add: the risen Christ is not just a Saviour to be understood, but a Presence to be shared.
In the going, we are found.
In the sending, we are known.
In the making Jesus known, we come to know Jesus: again, and again, and again.

Maybe that’s the invitation today in this theme—not to have it all figured out. Not to cling to Easter as a memory, but to live it forward.

We know Jesus – not just in belief, but in becoming.
Not just in being with Him – but in going with Him.
Not just in certainty – but in compassion, risk, and love.

The Great Commission is not just a command.
It’s a promise:
Go… and behold, I am with you always.
Even when you doubt.
Even when you feel unqualified.
Even when you’re still figuring it out.

That’s the risen Christ.
Known in the sending.
Known in the loving.
Known in the making known.

Amen