(Mt 28:16-20)

Matthew 28:16 Meanwhile the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.

Matthew 28:17 When they saw him, they prostrated themselves before him; but some doubted.

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus drew near and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world".

The passage opens with a historical connotation: "The eleven disciples", since the twelfth, Judas, was lost. The fact that it is remarked that there are eleven of them may remind one of something unpleasant: Judas is absent because he betrayed, and he betrayed because between God and money he chose money, which destroys all who worship him. There is also a theological reason. We know that the number 12 represented the whole of Israel, now there are eleven and the number 12 is not recomposed, because there is no longer a country to which Jesus is addressed with his message, but it is directed to the whole of humanity: the dimension of the Risen Christ is universal. 

They are called 'disciples', not apostles. The word disciple comes from "discere": one who learns. The fool is distinguished from the wise man because the fool always knows everything and will never know anything more than he knows; the wise man is the one who always learns very modestly. The term "apostle" means "sent". The disciples, before being sent, are disciples; when they go out to others they are apostles.

This means that the church is now called to retrace the adventure of its Lord, creating a kind of spiritual continuity between Jesus' mission and its own. A continuity that is also emphasised in v. 20: "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you". The teaching that the disciples must now take on is closely linked to that left to them by Jesus, thus creating a close and inseparable continuity between history and meta-history.

They "went to Galilee, to the mountain that Jesus had appointed for them". Galilee is the place where Jesus recruited his first disciples and from which he first evangelised and from which he set out on his mission; it is the place where he fixes the appointment with his own after his resurrection; it is the place, therefore, of the discovery and reconstitution of the first messianic community around his Lord. Galilee, then, rather than a geographical place, becomes a theological place. Jerusalem had ceased to be the centre of worship and religiosity. Access to God, to the true temple, was no longer confined to a place, but to a person, to the person of Christ.

The appointment in Galilee finds its summit on the mountain, which Jesus had fixed for them. It is not just any mountain, but "the mountain", a place that is qualified both by a determinative article and by a command that concerns it; it is a mountain that does not have a name, because it is not a geographical place, but a theological indication, which is linked to other mountains in Matthew's account [traditionally the mountain has been identified with Tabor].

Jesus' preaching activity began precisely on a mountain, that of the Beatitudes. He, there, had shown himself as the new Moses who imparted the new law to the new believer; the God who sat again in the midst of his people and taught them. And here, the mountain, in the plurality of its meanings, reappears for the last time. The disciples are summoned to the mountain, God's dwelling place, where the Risen One associates his own, now in a new way. It is from here that he restarts his mission, the mission that the Father had entrusted to him and that he now entrusts to his own, so that they may be witnesses of his glory. From the Father to Jesus, from Jesus to his own.

"They prostrate themselves", that is, they see Jesus and recognise in him a new condition, that is, the fullness of the divine condition, and they adore him, but they "doubted" and this seems a contradiction; they see Jesus, they prostrate themselves to him, so it means that they recognise in him a different condition from the one he had, but they doubted. Doubted what? Not that Jesus was risen, they saw him! What did they doubt?

The translators, they write "some doubted", it is not so! The Greek says all who see, all who doubt: "hoi de edistasan". There is a Hebrew rule of interpretation: when you want to relate two episodes and make it clear that they are connected, just put the same word or verb [only in these two episodes]. Well, the verb "doubting" in Matthew's gospel is only here and when Jesus walks on water. 

The evangelist presents a Jesus walking on water because the waters were considered chaos and the only one who could dominate the waters was God, and Jesus thus manifests his divine condition. Then Peter says: I want to come too, and Jesus says: come! He takes a few steps and begins to sink, i.e. Peter thought the divine condition was an easy walk. When Peter sees the difficulty he begins to sink. Then Jesus stretched out his hand, seized him and said to him: man of little faith, why did you doubt? So Peter thought that the divine condition was granted by Jesus, and did not understand instead that it is obtained through a journey that also passes through the fact of the cross. So let us now understand what they doubted. In Peter's case, doubt indicates a divided mind caused by a lack of an adequate measure of faith, not a lack of total faith.

They do not doubt that Christ is risen. If their faith was too little, it was because they were in a state of uncertainty as to what recent events would mean for the future. They did not doubt Jesus, but themselves. What happens now? Are we capable of this? They are in a state of cognitive dissonance. Do we remember the supper? Jesus says: I will now be taken and you cannot follow me, and Peter: I am ready to die with you! And they all tell him the same thing. They were just in time to see the guards all running away from a distance, and they left him. So will they who were so unable to follow Jesus be able now? 

Let us ask ourselves: why does 1) Matthew take the trouble to include the reference to their doubts, and 2) Matthew does not report any solution to their uncertainty? It seems clear that Matthew wanted the members of his community to apply this situation to themselves. The oscillation between adoration and indecision is the struggle of every disciple. To these people, far from being perfect, Jesus entrusts the task of making nations disciples.

For Jesus will not be lost behind their doubts. These will disappear. Before the light of the sun, the eyes may be uncertain as soon as they open, but then everything returns to normal. So it is with the disciples. There is still some scales in their faith that make it imperfect, but this will soon fall away. The full light of the Lord's resurrection will triumph over them. 

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)