Mark 16:9-20

Be Still: As I enter prayer now, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly, to re-centre my scattered senses upon the presence of God. (from Lectio365)

Read: Mark 16:9-20

Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. (v.20)

Encounter: Marks’s Gospel began abruptly, and he seems to have ended it abruptly at verse 8, so he probably didn’t write these last verses. But they are here, in our Scripture, and so fulfil a purpose for us. 

In this account, the emphasis gradually shifts from Jesus to his followers – first the two Marys, then two other followers (on the road to Emmaus?), then to his closest disciples. He gives them the Great Commission, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. We see the same command at the end of Matthew and Luke, spoken first to the eleven and then to all who would follow in their footsteps, century after century to the present day. 

And for almost two thousand years, the followers of Jesus have obeyed that command – how else would you and I be here reading these verses and rejoicing in God’s love? A long and precious chain: apostles, missionaries, martyrs, preachers, translators, teachers. And just ordinary everyday citizens, each one a witness bearing testimony – often at great cost - to the love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. 

Apply: It’s 2025. The Good News of Jesus has come to us through that golden chain of witnesses. It’s in our hands now, and you won’t have missed the implication – just whose responsibility is it to make sure that people will hear, and believe, and be saved, in 2026? 2050? 2075? 2100? And beyond?

Devote: Holy Spirit, please help me to find, and fulfil, my place in the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ and so continue that two-thousand-year obedience to the Great Commission.