“When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.”
Matthew 28:16
How human this line is, and how it captures our spirits sometimes! Yes we believe, we can feel Jesus working in our lives, we can pray, worship and love … and then we doubt.
In the first reading from Acts, we watch as Jesus leaves us, his followers, as he ascends into heaven. Those of us in his band of disciples watch from the ground below as he is slowly lifted up and away from us. Matthew’s gospel does not depict the Ascension, but as the gospel concludes, the disciples are called to the mountain, eager to meet Jesus. They see him, worship … and then doubt.
And how does Jesus react to that doubt? With an incredible and inexhaustible love for us and our failings. He looks on us with such love — and sends us out to do his work! He’s not waiting for us to become perfect — he sends us out, doubts, fears, failings and all. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them …” He’s not angry, disappointed or discouraged; he simply sends us as we are.
Maybe at this moment of sending we return to doubting. What does he mean? How are we supposed to do this? Make disciples of all nations? Where do we start? What if we are rejected, challenged? Can I really do this?
Then his last words drift down to us, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” We let those words settle into our souls, we feel them, we are reassured by them. We turn them over and over again in our hearts: Always…Until the end of the age… I will be with you…
And for now, for the moment, we set our doubts aside and begin the task he has given us.
Rev. Andy Alexander, SJ
Co-founder of Creighton’s Online Ministries, Retired 2025
I served at Creighton from 1996 to 2025. I served as Vice-president for Mission for three Presidents, directed the Collaborative Ministry Office and co-founded the Online Ministries website.
I loved seeing the number of faculty and staff who over the years really took up the mission as their own and made Creighton the Jesuit university it is today. I was also consoled to witness the website – a collaborative effort - touch the hearts of so many around the world.
I’m now living at St. Camillus – a Jesuit care facility in Milwaukee. Many of my days are spent dealing with my own health issues, as I carry out the mission we’ve been given, “to pray for the Church and the Society of Jesus.”
