The Commissioning of the Eleven

Today's Reflections   
 

                       

 

 The Commissioning of the Eleven 

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Mk 16:15-18

¹⁵[Jesus appeared to the Eleven and] said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. ¹⁶Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. ¹⁸They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Proclaim the gospel to every creature. Following the Lord is both a gift and a challenge. Rebuking the Eleven for their unbelief and hardness of heart, for not believing right away when told of his resurrection, Jesus now commands them to proclaim the gospel to every creature, that is, to all the world! Jesus offers salvation to those who believe and are baptized. In his name, believers will be able to drive out demons, speak new languages, and suffer no harm from dangerous animals and situations. They will heal people of their maladies. This is a great privilege, indeed, but it comes with an accompanying challenge. The disciples are to take untrodden paths to the furthest ends of the world.

This is the challenge we see in the life of Paul whose conversion we celebrate today. Because of his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul cannot help but preach the gospel and witness to his profound experience of being chosen and loved by Christ. For the gospel he undergoes labors and imprisonments, beatings and scourgings, stoning and shipwreck, harassment from Jews and persecution from Gentiles, hunger and thirst (cf 2 Cor 11:23ff). After all this, Paul declares, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, … will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).

“If I preach the gospel,

this is no reason for me to boast,

for an obligation has been imposed on me,

and woe to me if I do not preach it!”

(1 Cor 9:16).