In the beginning, Jesus called them and promised to make them fishers of men. Then Jesus went about proclaiming the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, making the lame walk, giving sight to the blind and chasing out demons. Along the way, they brought some bread and fish to Jesus and He multiplied both of these to feed the 5, 000, and later, after the resurrection, they, with a little help from Jesus, multiplied the fish on their own.

This is the point where one story is about to end, and the next one is about to begin.

Jesus is about to ascend to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father in Heaven and rule the universe as King of kings and Lord of lords, yet before He does so, there is one more thing…

Jesus will give them their marching orders:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

It was to be able to give this commend that Jesus had come to the earth in the first place. Usually we like to say that Jesus came to the earth to die for our sins, and this is certainly a true statement, for God’s love for us was really that great; He didn’t want any to perish. If we just leave it at that, however, there is a grave danger that we might overlook the fact that God wasn’t simply acting for our benefit, rather, He was acting to advance His purpose in creating humanity in the first place, to restore humanity to a place where He could truly have fellowship with us. In short, the work of Jesus on the cross was not the end, but the new beginning of Creation.

It is vitally important that we understand this.

The next step is for the Kingdom torch to pass from Jesus to His servants, and that is what Jesus is doing in this text. He symbolized it in John 21, as we saw yesterday; He commanded it here in Matthew 28.

They were to make disciples, just as Jesus had done with them, and in doing this, they began in earnest to build the Kingdom on this earth  they became fishers of men. After this, Jesus told them to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them, and then He ascended to Heaven. With this, the story of His earthly ministry came to its close, and a whole new beginning was about to burst upon this world.