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Day 183
Commissions are usually very specific, as is the Lord‘s in today’s text; they describe the mission, ascribe the authority, and provide the power. As a young adult, I had a military officer friend who received a commission to Viet Nam. He was to set up a new base camp to support a new operations initiative (mission). He received a new officer rank of Captain just prior to getting his orders (authority). One evening he took me on a ‘field trip’ out into the rail shipping yard of his nearby U.S. Army base to show me the volume of his materiel order (power). It was a whole train; there were ‘dozens’ of filled box cars and flat beds loaded with war machinery, much of it under wraps. His commission was physical and tactical, and the might was very visible, if even daunting!
Jesus’ commission, though only consuming about 1 ½ pages of a typical Bible, and the later more general one in Matthew 28:19-20, continues to rock and shake the world. The authority and power that Jesus unleashed to his apostles has survived the Roman wars, the Medieval Crusades, sectarianism, and even the polytheism of today’s shrinking world. With no physical provisions for even food, clothing, or shelter, and the barest procedural statement, how can such a simplistic plan have a chance?
First, the mission has an ‘other world’ origin; it is spiritual, i.e. conceived and monitored from the ‘heavenly realms’. Secondly, its power is not of our world, but is energized by the Holy Spirit of God, Himself; there is no limitation. Thirdly, there is not a horizon in the vision of Jesus’ mission. It is not limited by time, since eternity has no ‘future’. He sees the unfolding of the mission and its results, and sustains the energy in the knowledge of its efficacy. There’s no ‘unknown’ to generate discouragement or disappointment. “My kingdom is not of this world.”