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You may have heard the story of a family of children who were being rather noisy at home, until their mother asked them to be quiet. "Shh, everyone, Grandma is reading her Bible. Be quiet and give her a little peace." The noise died down for a little while but then it started up again, until one of the older children shouted, "Quiet everyone. We musn't disturb Grandma; she's swotting for her finals." During the Advent season, we are exploring those finals, as we consider the Four Last Things -death, judgement, heaven, and hell - in the light of Jesus Christ. Today we continue by reflecting on judgement, and what we shall say in the Nicene Creed about Christ as the Judge of all : "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."
Judgement. I wonder what experiences, pictures, or images that word conjures up for you? For me, one picture it conjures up is the vivid memory of a summons made about forty years ago for me to go at once to the study of the strict headteacher of my primary school. There was no denying my guilt before Miss Minnis, and the palms of my hands certainly hurt after I'd received several hard smacks with her wooden ruler!
Judgement often has a negative feel, doesn't it? It seems to focus on crime and punishment, on guilt and condemnation. And, in our culture of blame, judgement is usually about what others have done wrong. It's so easy, isn't it, to sit in judgement on others. We even do it in our leisure time. Think, for example, of the current obsession with judgement on so many TV programmes - e.g Strictly Come Dancing, the X Factor, or I'm a Celebrity … get me out of here! Whether by text or telephone, we are encouraged to judge the contestants, cast our vote, and so determine who leaves or stays. Yet what do those shows really tell us about ourselves, and about our society?
One of the difficulties with judgement is that, often, we only see a little of what is going on. Our vision is subject to cloudiness, distortion, and tricks of perspective. And sometimes, of course, our criticism of others is in fact a projection of the self-criticism that we feel within ourselves, but are unable to face. Human judgement, like human knowledge, is at best partial, incomplete. So often, we can be fooled by outward appearance. As the prophet Samuel had to be reminded when he was engaged in a talent show seeking to discern God's choice as king: "The Lord does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16 : 7).
As you and I think about judgement as one of 'the four last things', we are reminded that ultimately it is God who is the judge - and Christians believe that this judgement is entrusted by the Father to His Son, Jesus Christ, the One who "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." As Paul puts it in chapter 4 of his first letter to the Corinthians: "It is the Lord who … will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of human hearts" (1 Corinthians 4 : 4,5).
Both our Bible readings today urge us not to be caught unaware by the timing of Christ's return in glory. In Romans, Paul urges us to be awake to this Advent reality: "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here" (Romans 13 : 11,12). And, in today's Gospel, Jesus says : "Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come … So you .. must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him" (Matthew 24 : 42,44).
"He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." In his book Tokens of Trust the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, encourages us to remember that this coming final judgement is a reality to which we must start to become accustomed in the here and now: "The coming judgement of Christ is something we have to be aware of day by day, not a remote or mythical prospect in the future. Every day we have to become accustomed to the truth."
In Romans chapter 1, Paul reminds us in no uncertain terms that God's judgement is already at work, in the here and now : "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness … They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator" (Romans 1 : 18, 25).
Judgement is already at work, through the choices we make, and the consequences which ensue. The New Testament also reminds us that judgement has to do with the response we make to the Light of Jesus Christ, that light which has already come into the world. For example, as John's Gospel chapter 3 puts it : "This is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God" (John 3 : 19 -21).
If Jesus Christ is - as Christians believe Him to be - the ultimate reality of God, then our reaction to the truth which He reveals is vital. When we are confronted with reality - including the reality of who we are and what we've done - do we turn towards the light of Jesus Christ, or do we turn away into the darkness of ourselves, clinging to the delusion that there is nothing really the matter with us? For as John puts it in his first letter : "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1 : 8, 9).
Here and now, through confession and repentance, we can bring our sin before God's judgement and mercy. And, as Rowan Williams points out, "a Christian community doing its job is a community where people expect to be repenting quite a lot … a community of people who are daily aware of their own untruthfulness and lack of love, and are not afraid to face their failures."
The more we turn towards the light of Jesus Christ in this life, the more prepared we shall be for His final judgement beyond death. Death, which strips away any defences we have erected to the truth. I wonder if you've been to Canterbury Cathedral?
If you have, then you might have seen the 15th century tomb of Archbishop Chichele. On the top of the tomb lies the figure of the Archbishop in all his ecclesiastical finery; underneath is his naked corpse, ready for the worms. Reflecting on this sight of his predecessor, the present Archbishop comments: "It is a sobering sight (not only for Archbishops), a reminder that death is a nakedness to which we must all come, a spiritual stripping, as we are confronted by God. (Then) the identities we have made .. will dissolve, and what is deepest in us, what we most want, what we most care about, will be laid bare. We are right to feel apprehensive about that, and we are wrong to brush away the sense of proper fear before God's judgement, however much we dislike the extravagant or hysterical expressions of it that have characterised some ages of Christian history."
At present, our experience of judgement is incomplete. From a human perspective, we know that justice does not always prevail, and right judgements are not always made. And - in the face of all the evil and injustice still happening in the world around us - we may find ourselves asking questions such as where is God in all of this? Why on earth doesn't God do something?
In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is recorded as telling a parable which pictures God's Kingdom as a field containing both good and bad seed, wheat and weeds. Rather than trying to separate them out while they were both growing, the servants in the story were told to wait until the harvest time: "Let both grow together until the harvest" (Matthew 13 : 30). One day, in God's good time, a separation will finally be made between what is good and what is evil. And on that day, it will be Jesus Christ who will be doing the judging, for as Paul reminds us, "we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ" (2 Corinthians 5 : 10), the one who "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."
But what will the Final Judgement be like, we may well ask? Will it be like going into the Head's study to receive our end of term report? Or like standing in the dock to await our sentence? Such pictures can only take us so far, and may be based on a distorted understanding of God. What we do know is that Jesus clearly and frequently taught about the reality of the Last Judgement. We are also told that everyone will face it, and we are informed as to who God has appointed to be the Judge.
There is the true story of a former Archbishop of Canterbury who was once shown his newly painted portrait. On being asked whether he thought the painting did him justice, he replied, "it's not justice I need, but mercy." In the Last Judgement, it is not justice that you and I - or this world - will need, but mercy. Mercy that we can now seek - and find - in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - the One "who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."
John Barr
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