Arulvakku

08.07.2020 — Being sent as Jesus

14th Week in Ord. Time, Wednesday – 8th July 2020 — Gospel: Mt 10,1-7

Being sent as Jesus

This section includes the calling of the twelve (10,1), the naming of the twelve separated into groups of two (10,2-4; unlike Mark 3,16-19, Luke 6,12-16 and Acts 1,13), instruction about where they are to go (10,5-6), and what to preach (10,7). Jesus wants his disciples to experience what doing His ministry is all about. Therefore He empowers them with the authority which mirrors His own practices (9,35); the authority to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease and sickness (10,1). These ordinary men are given extraordinary power that Jesus himself possessed. Thus Jesus inducts his disciples into the same vocation of fulfilling His Father’s mission. They were not on their own. This was not their mission. This was God’s mission and they were now God’s men. They were the ones being sent by Jesus Himself. And so they were not to make their own choices or do their own thing. They were given authority, but they were under authority. Jesus not only sends them out with power to authenticate the kingdom’s nearness but to announce it by using the very same words as their teacher: “The kingdom of heaven has come near” (10,7; Jesus in 4,17; John in 3,2). Therefore Jesus followers are called to be representatives of Jesus. They are expected to resemble Him in preaching and healing.  To be sent by Jesus is, in some sense, to be sent as Jesus.