The Gospel for Trinity Sunday is bursting with theological mystery. Its three verses, which complete Saint Matthew’s Gospel, are a revelation that is radically foundational to our holy Faith, the Church, and its mission. The setting for the revelation was a mountain in Galilee. The time was probably within a week or two after Our Lord’s second appearance to the eleven Apostles in the Upper Room.
The setting for the words of this Gospel is a mountain in Galilee. It was the place whereunto Our Lord had instructed the eleven Apostles to meet Him at a certain time shortly after His resurrection. It was not that mountain from which He would ascend into heaven, that being Olivet outside Jerusalem. Perhaps it was Tabor, the mountain upon which Christ was transfigured? I like to think that it was because the revelation Jesus gave on this occasion could be seen as a confirmation to the other eight Apostles of what God the Father had revealed on Tabor to Peter, James, and John about the identity of His Son.
The Gospel text is immediately preceded by a very abrupt and what seems at first to be a very disturbing verse. Saint Matthew is telling us (under divine inspiration remember), that although the eleven Apostles bowed down and “adored” the Risen Christ, there were some who “doubted.”
How could this be? How could any of the Apostles “doubt” when they had seen the Risen Christ at least two times already, if not more? And how did Matthew know their inner thoughts, unless by direct inspiration? Surely, the “doubters” didn’t voice their hesitancy in faith. Or maybe they did? And this, even though the Apostles had all heard the Lord’s reprimand of Thomas: “Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29).
I was always very troubled by this verse, having resolved myself to what I thought was a certain small number of Apostles with a faith that was unaccountably weak, but which was to be made strong at Pentecost.
In reviewing this text again this morning, I decided that there has to be more to this verse than the eight words of the Douay translation; so I checked out a couple of Catholic commentaries. Sure enough, come to find out that in the inspired Greek this text could better be translated: “but other some doubted.” This is our great grace, to be members of the true Church, and hold to tradition as we garner wisdom from two thousand years of teaching, rather than resorting to private interpretation of scripture. What appears then, at first, to be quite problematic, i.e., Apostles “doubting” even after such intimate post-resurrection encounters with the Risen Christ, is not so difficult a verse to understand after all.
Who are these “other some” who “doubted?” From the Greek we know that they were not, as I had long thought, of the eleven. The finger of Saint Thomas had ended all doubt, if indeed he ever did actually do as Christ bid him to. When Matthew writes that the “eleven” disciples came unto the mountain in Galilee where Jesus had appointed them, he did not say that no one else came with them. In fact, this apparition could have been the occasion recorded by Saint Paul in 1 Cor. 15: 6 when the Risen Jesus was seen by five hundred brethren.
It was, therefore, among these “other some” that there were doubters. And what did they doubt exactly. It would seem that they were doubting that their eyes were actually beholding the Master who had been crucified and buried. Even when Jesus appeared on the shore to the Apostles when they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee during those forty days of His glorified earthly sojourn, they did not immediately recognize Him as He watched them from the shore. No, it wasn’t until He called them “little children” that John cried out “It is the Lord.”
So, perhaps it was a similar situation here on the mountain. The eleven Apostles approached Our Lord, and adored Him. But “some others,” who were not so close, viewed Him from a distance. The features of His Risen Body, even though His luminescent glory was veiled, were unfamiliar to them. But what exactly did they doubt? That this “man” was really Jesus and not some kind of phantasm?
I tend to suspect that the doubt had more to do with His body than His Person. It’s just a thought for which I have no authority to cite. What I think was doubted by these “other some” was the bodily resurrection. Yes, the tomb was empty, but is this body I am looking at really that which was buried in the tomb? Is this voice that I hear really that of the “man” who commanded Lazarus to come forth from the tomb and who lifted his head before dying on the Cross and cried out with a loud voice: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
To erase their doubt Jesus came closer to them, “and Jesus coming, spoke to them.” Then he uttered words that must have astonished them even more than His presence: “All power is give to me in heaven and on earth,” He said. And in virtue of this power He sends them forth to teach “all nations.”
Teach them who I am and why I have come, and baptize them. Not in My Name only, but baptize them “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” One God, One Essence, One Name, in Three Persons. When Jesus voiced the Aramaic or Hebrew word for “Name” His listeners knew that He was equating Himself with the Holy One, the One God of Israel, whose Name was so hallowed that only the high priest could utter it, and that in the holy of holies, once a year on the feast of Yom Kippur. What He was revealing to His disciples was that not only had He come “in the Name of the Lord” as they knew the Messiah, the Christ, was to come, but that He and the Father and the Holy Spirit share the One incommunicable and eternal “Name.” Jesus was the “I am who am,” the eternal and infinite, who revealed His Name to Moses in the burning bush. “Before Abraham was made,” Jesus had affirmed to scribes and pharisees, “I am. And they took up stones to cast at Him” (John 8:59).
The eternal Son then commands the little Church, gathered on the mountain, to teach all nations to “observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you.” For as the Father has given Me all power in heaven and on earth, so I send you with My truth and in the power of My Name. And, therefore, you ought to fear nothing for “behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
