by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
“When You come, O God, upon the earth with glory, the whole world will tremble. The river of fire will bring men before Your judgment seat, the books will be opened and their secrets disclosed. Then deliver me from the unquenchable fire, and count me worthy to stand on Your right hand, O Judge most righteous.” ~ Kontakion Hymn of the Last Judgment
During the last two Sundays of this pre-Lenten Triodian period (the Pharisee & the Tax Collector; and then the Prodigal Sons), we were encouraged to reflect on God’s loving patience and His merciful enthusiasm to receive every sinner who returns to Him repenting. However, on this third Sunday coming up, we’re urged to remember a corresponding alarming truth: As patient and merciful as God is, He simply won’t forgive those who have been unwilling to repent—those who refuse to unify their lives with His will and His loving mission. Eventually, when Christ comes again in glory, He’ll come as our Judge…as we say in the creed, “to judge the living and the dead.” Thus, Lent is graciously given to us by the Church to remind us of our mortality, that we should turn back while there’s still time, repenting before our End comes.
So, this Sunday, Christ gives us an uncomfortable picture of everyone’s judgement (Matthew 25:31-46), a glimpse into the Eschaton—the End Times. The forty-day Lent coming up prepares us for that scene at Jesus’ Second Coming when we will all stand before the great judgment seat of Christ. And yet, Lent also reminds us that God’s judgment isn’t merely something that happens in the future. Here and now, each day, when our hearts are being hardened toward others…when we fail to respond to the opportunities God places before us to help them…then we already pass judgment on ourselves and we miss out on the experience of God’s Kingdom within our lives.
So, what will we be judged upon? Jesus says that it’s going to be upon how well we loved those around us. Saint Maria Skobotsova—the Orthodox Christian nun who was martyred by the Nazis for her courageous self-sacrifice, rescuing Jews from German persecution—sums it up well. She says, “The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says “I”: “I was hungry, and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.” To think that He puts an equal sign between Himself and anyone in need . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.”
And it’s important to point out that this love that Jesus speaks of in this Sunday’s parable of judgement isn’t an abstract, humanitarian concern for the anonymous poor like what we see so much of in online virtue signaling and political siding—where someone aligns themselves with the governmental candidate or party-platform offering the most of other people’s money to benefit those who are suffering. Instead, Jesus takes all of this to a very personal level, where we’re expected to be compassionately present with others amidst their suffering. Jesus doesn’t let us get away with a mere a depersonalized verbal agreement, where we say that we love others, but it isn’t expressed tangibly. Rather, He makes it very clear that we are to see Christ in the persons around us who are struggling, whoever he or she is, and whom God, in His eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into our lives, even if it’s only for a few moments…not as an occasion for a “good deed” nor a conceptual “exercise in philanthropy,” but rather, as the beginning of an eternal companionship with God Himself.
The parable of the Last Judgment is about Christian love. We know that all persons ultimately need this personal love—the recognition in them of their unique soul in which the beauty of the whole creation is reflected in a unique way. We also know that people are in prison and are sick and thirsty and hungry because that personal love has been denied them. And, finally, we know that however narrow and limited the framework of our personal existence, each one of us has been made responsible for a tiny part of the Kingdom of God—made responsible by that very gift of Christ’s love. Thus, on whether or not we have accepted this responsibility, on whether we have loved or refused to love, shall we be judged.
Saturday of Souls: On this Saturday—before this Sunday’s Judgment of Love—the first of three consecutive Saturday of the Souls are held. Saturday of Souls is a day when the Church offers a Divine Liturgy and then a Memorial Service for our departed loved ones. “Koliva”—a bowl or platter of boiled & soft dried bulgur wheat kernels, mixed with chopped walnuts, raisins, finely chopped parsley, and decorated with powdered sugar, pomegranate seeds and almonds (with some variations on these ingredients)—is brought for the memorial. The reason we use wheat, reminds us of a couple of related passages of scripture. First, we’re encouraged to meditate on Christ’s words when He said, “Here is a timeless truth I want to emphasize to you: Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). And Saint Paul carried the symbolism of Jesus’ words even further regarding our beloved departed who died in the hope of resurrection: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). Therefore, that carries us into the theme of this Sunday’s Last Judgment, since the Divine Liturgy and Memorial Services focus on Christ’s second coming, His overcoming death by death, and His resurrection of the dead. It reminds us that Christ’s love extends to those departed loved ones, and thus, so also should our love in tangible ways. Our love should be so united with Christ’s love that we’re willing to put everything else aside to be bodily present for this Divine Liturgy and to offer prayers on behalf of the departed who now await the Last Judgment.
All of this helps us pause to reflect upon our own imminent death, when each of us will appear before Christ to give an account of our lives. As we prepare ourselves for the spiritual struggles of the coming 40 days of Lent, we should remember that we’ve been given this present life for repentance and for requesting God’s mercy. When Christ comes in glory to judge the world, it will be too late then to say that we repent, or to ask for mercy. Therefore, we should make the most of the time that God is graciously giving us now to die to ourselves, struggling against every bodily compulsion which separates us from God’s will. We should confess those sins, correct ourselves, and pursue a life of uniting ourselves with Christ’s loving mission in the world.