To refresh your memories, in my last reflection, I referred to the icon of Jesus the Pantocrator from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai. It is a 6th century icon that depicts Christ with two distinct personalities on his face. On the right side, we see an expression of gentleness, love, and compassion. On the left side, we see a stern expression, similar the one that Christ gave when he rebuked the money changers in the temple. I mentioned how dangerous it is to focus solely on one side of the face of Christ, because to preach only one without the other leads to an unbalanced and dangerous view of Who God is! We have to view both sides of the image of Christ if we are to have a healthy understanding of Who Jesus Is, and what He came here to do. We must see him as “The Dread Judge Who Has Come to Save”.
In part 1 of this reflection, we looked at the Father who has come to Save. Now, just one week until the beginning of Great and Holy Lent, the Church points our attention to God as “The Dread Judge”.
To set up the Gospel Lesson from the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25: 31-46), we have to look at some of the other places and parables that our Lord speaks of the Judgment of the Father. A good place to start is the second part of the parable of the Prodigal Son, which we did not really look at in part one.
After the prodigal son had returned to his Father, and after the party ensued for the fallen son’s repentance, we hear about the other eldest son who is in the field and hearing all of the commotion in the house. This son was one who remained close to his father. He didn’t spend his time going out and wasting his inheritance, yet he felt that he never was rewarded for doing what he was supposed to be doing in the first place.
We have a tendency to look at this brother and feel bad for him. We might even have the temptation to have the same kinds of thoughts going on through our heads in our own relationship with God!
“I have done things right! I go to Church often. Confession is a regular mystery I partake of. I try my hardest to live a moral life, and when I don’t, I am quick to repent. Why doesn’t God reward me?”
In our self-righteousness, we begin to question the judgment of the Father…
There is yet another parable earlier in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus is showing us something similar. He tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out early to hire workers for his vineyard. The first person he sees, he negotiates for him to work for the whole day for one denarius, and the laborer agreed and went to work.
The landowner went out a few hours later and found more workers, and said to them, “whatever is right, I will give you”, and they agreed to go work the fields as well. Even later, at the very end of the day, the owner found people who weren’t working and hired them to go work for one hour or so. At the end of the day, the owner gave the one denarius he had promised to the first, and paid everyone else, even the person that only worked ONE HOUR, the same amount.
The first guy was furious and said to the owner something similar to the older brother of the prodigal son: “How is this fair?!”
How did the owner, who is a picture of God Himself, answer him?
“Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is your and go your way. I wish to give the last man the same as you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?”
These two images offer us two important lessons that we have to understand in order to properly understand the Dread Judge and What He Will Come Here to Do.
1.) Who are we to judge THE JUDGE?
It is often asked: “God, why do you allow people who are living in sin continue to do so without repercussion? There is a war going on right now, where innocent lives are being lost. Why don’t you step in and punish Putin or the other Russian or Ukrainian Leaders that perpetrated the war? Politicians, so called Christian Preachers, and other leaders of our own country push agendas that go against the moral fiber of our Christian Country…why O Lord have you not stepped in to destroy these people?!”
St. Paul gives us the answer in his epistle to the Romans: “Who are you, O Man, to talk back to God?
The moment we judge THE JUDGE, is the same moment where we reveal the true nature of the state of our hearts towards God…one that is desolate and in ruin…and as our Lord says, one that is Evil, because He is Good.
2.) The Love of God is scandalous to those who lack humility.
The love that the father showed to his prodigal son was scandalous to the judgmental older brother. In the same breath, the Love of God towards fallen humanity is scandalous to us who don’t really see ourselves as the worst of sinners.
With those two images in mind, we come now to the theme that propels us into the humility necessary to begin Great Lent: The Remembrance of the Last Judgment. We are reminded of the day when God will come in Glory for all eyes to see. For those who have rejected the Love of God in their life…who see the Love of God as scandalous and unjust, the brightness of His glory will be unbearable. They will be unable to behold it or bear His presence. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us! And to the hills “Cover us” (Luke 23:30)
However, for those who see themselves as the lowest of the low, and who have spent a lifetime awaiting the day of Christ’s return to set the world right, they will lift up their heads to the same Judge with expectation and joy.
For Christians living every day in the Presence of God, the Judgement shouldn’t be something that we fear. So why Dear ones, do we ask of God in the Liturgy for “a good defense before the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ”.
We call this glorious day of God’s judgment “dread” to remind us of the importance of humility. When we humbly examine our lives, with all of the offenses that we have offered our brothers and sisters in word, deed, and thought, and with all of the sins we have uttered against God Himself…like all of the Saints that have gone before us, we come to the realization that we have no defense.
May we all indeed proceed to the beginning of the Great Fast with a humble soul…one that sees our faults and our unworthiness to be in the presence of God, thus revealing the judgment as truly one of dread. Yet, may we also rely on the same scandalous love of God that we so often question…asking that right side of the face of Christ in the icon, to have mercy on us who have fallen.