“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Matthew 28:18 NIV

Okay, so this passage begins the last little bit of Matthew’s Gospel and the final recorded words of Jesus before He ascends into heaven. It’s not flowery text, it’s not overly stated. In fact, it is beautifully simple and reassuringly clear. It’s not an enigmatic statement, leaving you to ponder just what it means for millennia to come. It is a statement of raw power and plain-faced certainty.

This first sentence is enough to propel anyone and everyone beyond the confines of a ‘normal’ life and into the realms of wonder because it is our key to the door of heaven’s coming. Not all in the future, but beginning today, with each of us who follow after Jesus Christ. It is ambassador status being conferred and the parable of the talents being put into action.

Jesus is looking at His faithful, rag-tag crew and telling them their apprenticeship is over, that it is time for them to step up and now go do what He had been preparing them to do for the last several years. All the lessons, all the examples, all the miracles, all the love, all the acts of mercy, all the teachings, all the confrontations with worldly powers and authorities came down to this:

All power and authority has been given to Jesus. Because He was the Word and been in this role of speaking authority from before there was a beginning, He was now teaching them one last thing about authority itself.
That the authority of God’s instruction and message was being conferred to them.

It is an assurance for the days to come when the odds felt stacked against them and they encountered people that the world called the most powerful and who seemed to wield the most authority. They were being assured that the scepters and swords they encountered were the playthings of arrogant children and that real power, real authority in this universe had been shared with them through a message. They were couriers of this authority, not that they themselves were in authority, but that they went on behalf of the hug One who held it. They were responsible for carrying and sharing that message with the highest of the high and the lowest of the low. The oppressed and the oppressor were on their list of scheduled appointments and today is the day to begin moving the final pieces of the puzzle together.

And so Jesus prefaces the commissioning with a reminder that will comfort them, strengthen them and encourage them as they ‘Go’, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And at the end of the passage He reminds them that since He is the One sending them, that He will also be the One with them as they are going.

This is love. That God, the Creator of the universe, would use us and send us out in this way, conspiring with us in the act of saving His creation from itself. So, in His authority, we have been sent as ambassadors of love, mercy, compassion, truth, justice and grace.

GoLove with confidence, then, knowing that there isn’t a human being on this planet who isn’t subject to the authority of the One who has sent you. That victory is certain and, in fact, already secured through Him. Be confident. Be encouraged. Our Master goes with us, the Spirit quickens us and the Father’s will drives us forward for His glory.