Matt 28:16-20. After the 96 days of Lent and Easter we move back into Ordinary time – but before we do there are two feasts to remind us of the whole direction of our Christian lives. Almost all of the other feastdays are connected with events in the life of Jesus and the saints, but this Sunday and next are really about the trajectory offered by every Sunday. In the closing scene from Matthew’s Gospel we are given the invitation to join the disciples to gather around Jesus and worship him. He then tells us that in him all authority has been given to him and therefore we are given the great commission from Jesus – to make disciples; baptising into the name of the trinity; and teaching the commands of Jesus. But just as at the start of the Gospel the angel promises that the child will be called ‘Jesus’, the Emmanuel, now at the end Jesus promises that he will be with the disciples until the end of time.
Recorded at St Michael’s, 6pm Vigil (10’14”)