When we love someone and they aren’t with us, we feel their absence. Some absences are an inevitable part of life, some come about because people choose paths, activities, or opportunities that take them away from where they once were. Other absences occur out of hurt or hurtful actions. Jesus’ community of friends was no different.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:17-20)

Notice how, rather than simply saying “the disciples”, the Gospel of Matthew specifically mentions eleven. However, not long before this passage, Jesus’ community used to have a core group of twelve friends, even calling them brothers. Of course, the number of disciples has deep symbolic meaning as it points back to the whole people of God, the twelve tribes of Israel. The absence of one was significant; their community had experienced loss. Yes, they were witnesses of the resurrection, but they were still a hurt community of eleven, instead of twelve. Moreover, we confirm that this community was frail and wounded when we see that some disciples worshiped while others doubted when they saw Jesus.

But here is when we encounter Good News: Jesus comes to them one more time and gathers them around himself. Jesus had promised that he would meet them in Galilee, and he does. Their community needed to experience the Good News again and Jesus faithfully meets them.

But that is not all! Jesus goes one step further and entrusts this community with God’s desire and purpose of redemption: “Beloved, wounded, doubting friends, go make disciples; don’t leave anyone out!”

Mission is for communities. More specifically, mission is for broken communities.

Jesus is doing the gospel work in and with this wounded community. He is asking and entrusting his friends/brothers/ community to tell a story about abundant life. It is Jesus’ story, but it is also the story of the community that recognizes him as Lord. It is a story that contradicts the one that was most convenient for the religious and political power of the day:

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So, the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day. (Matthew 28:11-15)

Jesus’ story of triumph over death is witnessed by women. In that day, the testimony of a woman was worth much less than the testimony of a man. And yet, Jesus chose women as the first witnesses of his resurrection, and he greets them with these words that changed everything: “Do not be afraid.”

The story of Jesus’ triumph over death started with lowly witnesses and a broken, doubting community. What does that mean for us—the Church?

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned during the 15 years that my family and I served in various Latin American countries is that the Good News of the gospel is best communicated, best represented, and best lived out not by individuals with specialized training, such as myself, but by local communities of faith. These churches intentionally invite and welcome broken people to be part of them, to share life together, to enjoy the fellowship and companionship they find in Christ.

I think of the church in La Paz, Bolivia, that used their annual Vacation Bible School to provide dental care for children in a poor neighbourhood, or the church in Costa Rica that sees cleaning up the riverbed as part of their witness to the community, or the faithfulness with which my current church in Vancouver has served and witnessed to the city’s marginalized for decades.

These churches are not perfect. They often lack resources, the leadership is not always properly trained, many times they lack a building of their own, and sometimes the authorities are against them. These communities of disciples are, and will be, loving yet broken, worshipful yet also doubt-filled—just like this community of disciples that we see in the passage we know as The Great Commission.

Christ is still entrusting his story of abundant life to lowly, broken, and even doubting individuals and communities—a story desperately needed in a world oppressed by the weight and deceit of other stories. Stories that lead to war; stories that lead to racism; stories that lead to death. The Good News of God’s burning desire for all nations must be shared today.

The woundedness, doubt, and anxiety of the first community of friends was no barrier for Jesus to continue to do his work in and with them. Our own woundedness, doubt, and anxieties are no barrier either. Remember his words: “Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

“Surely, I am with you always.”