Judgment: A Final Meditation on Matthew 25 for this Last Sunday of the Church Year

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, 

and all the holy angels with him, 

then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: 

and he shall separate them one from another, 

as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, 

but the goats on the left.

At this turning of the Church year, in that often forgotten space between Thanksgiving and the Advent season, the people of God take a moment to ponder the Last Things.  The crescendo of the lectionary readings builds to this day, so that we might not forget that Judgment is coming upon the world, despite our love and our work which we pour into it.  The homes and communities we build, the nations and monuments we erect, the great swelling words of poets, the beautiful strokes of artists, the penetrating thoughts of philosophers, the ponderings of theologians, the conquests of armies, the calculations of scientists and engineers, will all one day come to an end.  Our Lord reminds us in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, that we are a people with one eye and one foot in this temporal world, but also with an eye and a foot in an eternity which quickly moves toward our present moment.

In this final image of the chapter, Jesus reveals that not only will He come again at the end of the world, but that He will come in all His divine glory with all the holy angels to judge the living and the dead.  Everyone, from every corner of creation and from every epoch since God breathed our universe into existence, will be resurrected on that Day to stand, both body and soul, before their Creator and Judge.  Jesus, having defeated death through His own life, death, and resurrection on Calvary for the sins of the whole world, will finally remove death from the creation so that it may no longer torment His people, casting death and hades into the Lake of Fire.  There also will be cast the great tempter of our race, the Devil and all his legions of evil angels, to be imprisoned forever and no longer able to hunt or harm God’s people.  What Jesus promised to Adam and Eve at the dawn of man’s fall into sin, won for the world through His Cross nearly 2000 years ago, and has continually sent out by His Word and Spirit through the preaching of His Gospel through every age down to our present day, He will come again to bring to completion.  With all the enemies of God who have wreaked havoc on the creation and on mankind since the dawn of time finally put into everlasting chains, humanity will stand before their Maker and Judge to give an account of their lives.

It is a terrifying vision, to be sure.  Jesus will separate all peoples, regardless of their age, race, or time, into two great groups:  one will be on His right hand, and the other on His left, metaphorically distinguished as a shepherd separating his sheep from his goats.  To the people at His right hand, the sheep who have abided in the Word of their Shepherd by grace through faith, living out their faith in works of mercy and love for the people around them, He will welcome them into His eternal Kingdom which was prepared for them from before the foundation of the world.  To those on His left hand, the people who have rejected the Word of the Shepherd and thereby rejected the gifts of faith and grace which would have inspired them to lives of divine love and mercy, He commands into the everlasting flames of hell, there to be imprisoned together with the Devil and his wicked hosts.  The blessed people on Christ’s right hand protest that they have done nothing worthy of their own salvation, and Jesus assures them that the works of love which He worked through them for their neighbors as they abided in Him, are the fruits of living faith which show forth their baptismal grace.  The cursed people on Jesus’ left hand protest that their works don’t deserve eternal perdition, and He declares to them that their lives apart from Him were only reflections of the dark motivations of the demonic hordes.  In an instant all their fates are sealed, and both justice and mercy are executed in perfect judgment upon all the people of the world.

And yet, the vision is only terrifying to those who hope to stand before God apart from His saving Word— those who hope to stand upon their own righteousness and works, to demand of God that they receive their just due.  The great warning is that everyone who desires to stand before God and be judged according to their own merits, will be judged according to His holy Law and receive the condemnation they deserve.  No person’s heart is pure for even an instant, let alone for the entirety of their lives; no one sees all the needs of their neighbors and serves them as God would have us to do; no one loves as God loves, abiding constantly in His truth, love, mercy, justice, and perfection.  To the one who wants to be justified according to their own works and merits, who wants to stand before their Creator on equal footing and demand to be recognized for their own greatness, God will give them what they call for:  He will show them their true selves in the perfect mirror of His Holy Law, and by that same Law pass their sentence as wicked and corrupt rebels whose only fate can be the Lake of Fire.  For those who reject God openly and live in public scorn of their Maker, or those who presume to wear the cloaks of piety yet lurk as wicked wolves in sheep’s clothing, the fate is the same before a God who cannot be deceived or mocked:  to those who desire a judgment of Law apart from grace and faith, they will each receive their wish.

But to those who abide in the grace of their Maker, who stand not upon their own sullied works but the perfect works of Christ by faith in Him, that Last Day should hold no terror.  The Law having been satisfied in the Cross of Jesus, those who abide in him by faith and repentance receive His grace and mercy, with His Holy Spirit enlivening them to live forever.  They know their works are insufficient to save them, and fall before God in humility asking not for what they deserve, but for the merciful gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation for Jesus’ sake.  To these is revealed that even their small and paltry works of love and mercy for their neighbors have been hallowed in the Blood of Christ, and Jesus through them has done far more in the world than they might have realized.  In them was preserved the three great and abiding gifts of faith, hope, and love, as Jesus and His Word became incarnate in them, sealed in them by the Holy Spirit.  Their lives of faith were begun in Jesus when they were born from above by Water and Spirit, grafted into Jesus’ Vine as once dead branches but now living and fruit bearing people.  For those who abide in Jesus, there is now no condemnation, in this present day, or the Last Day, or for the endless Day of eternity.  

To you this Word of the Lord comes, even as the world presses closer toward the inescapable end of all things.  We shall all meet our Maker, and face Him as either our Savior according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or our Judge according to His irrevocable Law.  Hear Him call to you this day, that you might have nothing to fear on that Last Day, or any other day in all eternity.  Turn from the selfish, rebellious ways of darkness which can have no end other than perdition, and rather come to the Shepherd who has always longed to save you in His grace.  Hear the Word of the Lord, repent, believe, and live.  Amen.

Accountable Stewards: A Meditation on Matthew 25

For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, 

who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; 

to every man according to his several ability; 

and straightway took his journey.

In the parable of the stewards and the talents, Jesus continued His teaching to His disciples about the coming end of the age.  Here in the middle of Matthew’s 25th chapter, the emphasis is laid upon the duty and accountability of those to whom God gives His gifts, where the word “talent” refers metaphorically to a large sum— technically a weight measure— of money.  Three stewards or servants of the owner were gathered together, entrusted with the owner’s resources according to their abilities, and then the owner left on a long journey.  Within the context of the other parables in Matthew 25, the assumption is that the stewards knew their master would return, but not precisely when.  Rather than focusing specifically on their master’s return, they were expected to focus on being faithful in their duties, trusting that he would return at a time which was appropriately known only to him.  In essence, the duty of the stewards didn’t depend on the return date of their master, but rather on their relationship to him and the gifts he had entrusted to them.

When the master returned, two of the servants had used their master’s resources wisely and industriously, resulting in the growth of their master’s wealth.  The first was given ten talents, and through his faithful efforts doubled them; likewise the second servant faithfully labored and doubled the two talents given to his care.  The third, however, did nothing with his single talent, but bury it in the yard and wait for his master’s return.  There’s an interesting interlude where this lazy, unfaithful servant tries to accuse his master of wrong doing while he’s being held accountable for his sloth, and the master will have none of it.  The master called out this wicked person’s selfishness, laziness, pride, and unfaithfulness, then took the buried talent and gave it to the first servant, while condemning the lazy, unfaithful steward to ‘the outer darkness”— another way of describing the condemnation of hell.

The parable should deeply shake anyone who reads it.  Every person who lives, or who has ever lived, or who will ever live in this world, is the beneficiary of God’s good gifts.  Life, time, resources, and aptitude in a myriad of combinations is given to every person He creates in time and space.  Not all people are given the same gifts in the same quantities or in the same ways, but in His wisdom, God gives to everyone according to their ability, and holds everyone accountable for how they manage His gifts.  Eventually, every single person will stand before their Maker and give an account of what they did with the resources God gave to their care, whether that day is the end of the world or the end of their lives.  Everyone who comes into this world is bestowed with the grace of God’s resources and a duty to steward them according to His design.  Likewise everyone will eventually stand before the God who made them, and be held accountable for what they have done with what He entrusted to them.

Who among us can say that we’ve used all the gifts of this mortal life well?  Who among us can stand before our Maker and declare that our every breath, every moment, every thought, every energy, every material resource, every intellectual endeavor, was stewarded according to God’s design?  Knowing that our God has woven into us and into all creation the Law of Love— the humble love of God and the selfless love of our neighbor, upon which is built the entire Law of Holy Scripture and the proclamation of the Prophets— who can say that they have never used their gifts for greed, or avarice, or self-indulgence?  Who has never used the good gifts of God for their own pride, their lust, and their hatred of others?  Who has never taken a good gift of God and locked it away so that others could not benefit from it, and then cursed God in their heart for convicting them of laziness, selfishness, and unfaithfulness?  In truth, we are all more like the third unfaithful steward than we would like to admit, and the terrible sentence which befell him at the end of his days, is the fate we deserve as well.  In the end, with all the life and time and resources we have been given, we must confess that we have not used them in perfect accord with our gracious Master’s loving intent, but more often than not for our own twisted desires.  We stand guilty as unfaithful stewards, and no attempt to impugn God’s goodness by exporting our own infidelity to Him, will assuage our accountability before His holy Law.

But thanks be to God, that we need not stand in such judgment!  For Christ, who knew our weakness and our unfaithfulness, served in our place.  He who is always faithful because His is the eternally begotten Son of the Father, in the everlasting communion of the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever, stepped into our world as a servant in our likeness, that He might render to God what we were unable to do.  Jesus took the good gifts of God and used them exclusively for the good of all mankind and the glory of His Father, offering Himself as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and thereby satisfying the Law of Love through His holy cross.  Unable to save ourselves from the righteous fate due to unjust stewards, the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ took upon Himself our hell, our outer darkness, our condemnation, and our punishment, so that He might in turn offer to us His forgiveness, life, and salvation in His holy name.  Rather than fearing our unescapable reckoning with our holy Judge, we are free to look forward without fear to the day in which our loving Father receives us for the sake of His Son, in whom, by whom, and with whom we have become inheritors of His kingdom.

And it is in this hope, this faith, that we now live, surrounded by the good and gracious gifts of God which abound to us in every conceivable way.  This life, this time, this multiplicity of resources, this endless depth of God’s grace and mercy is now given to us, that we might reflect His goodness to all people, and by His Holy Spirit be fashioned into witnesses who burn with the love of God and our neighbor.  No longer left to our own fallen abilities, we are raised up in the new life of Jesus, that He may live in us, and His stewardship might flow through us to a lost and dying world.  No longer do we look forward in fear to the inescapable end of the age, but in faith, hope, and love, we labor joyously for our Lord, knowing that His return is the salvation of all who put their trust in Him.  Hear the Word of the Lord come to you again this day, that you might leave the dark destiny of a faithless steward behind, and rise up in faith and repentance to a new life in the faithful stewardship of Jesus your Savior.  Amen.

Living Prepared: A Meditation on Matthew 25

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, 

which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, 

Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, 

Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

But the wise answered, saying, 

Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: 

but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; 

and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: 

and the door was shut.

Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour 

wherein the Son of man cometh.

Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins sits in the midst of several parables He uses to teach people about the Kingdom of God, and specifically about His second coming at the end of the age.  There is a Bridegroom, Jesus, who has promised to come at the end of the world, to judge justly the living and the dead of all times and all places, and gather into His eternal banquet hall all those who abide in Him and His Word by His grace through faith.  Those who abide in Him by grace through faith, whether they are alive at His coming or have already passed into His heavenly kingdom through earthly death, meet Him as their Savior.  Those who refuse to abide in Him and His Word, who have despised, ignored, repudiated, or rejected Him for some other worldly fixation, will meet Him on that last day as their inescapable Judge.  These are the only two eternal fates which Jesus describes in all His recorded teachings, and to which all the Old Testament Prophets and the New Testament Apostles bore witness.  Whether we meet the Lord on the last day of the world, or the last day of our earthly lives, we can only meet Him as either our Savior or our Judge— either according to His Gospel, or according to His Law.

The point of the parable of the 10 virgins is that no one knows the day or the hour of the Lord’s return, and that the wise will live prepared for His coming, while the foolish will cavalierly ignore it.  The same kind of analogy applies not only for the end of the whole world, but for the end of every individual’s world when death finally comes to meet them.  Like the end of the world, no one really knows when their earthly life will end, and they will be summoned before the God of all creation to give an account of the life they were given.  People can either live their lives prepared to meet their Maker and the eternal destiny which that meeting will prescribe, or they can live as if they are ignorant or disinterested in it.  Across Jesus’ parables about His Second Coming, He is clear that being prepared to meet Him is to abide in Him and His Word through living faith and repentance, reflecting divine love toward their God and their neighbors.  To be unprepared is to discard the Word of God, ignore His Law and His Gospel, living rather in their pride, lust, violence, and selfishness.  Jesus tells us that to live prepared to meet Him by faith and repentance is wise, because the grace He has won for us by His life, death, and resurrection has secured for us a blessed place in His Kingdom, and that He pours out this grace of forgiveness, life, and salvation freely through His Word and Sacraments, daily administered in His Holy Church throughout the world.  He also tells us that to be unprepared to meet Him is foolish, since apart from His grace won for the world at Calvary and lived out in the fellowship of the faithful, every soul stands accountable before God according to the perfection of His eternal Law— a Law which reveals every person to be corrupt in their nature and in their lives, justly condemned to the fires of hell, forever tormented and imprisoned together with the devil and all the evil angels.  The Gospel of Jesus will save every soul which clings to Him by living faith, and the Law of Jesus will condemn every soul which refuses His grace through willful unbelief.

And so the Word of Jesus comes to us again this day, calling all people to be wise rather than foolish, for our Creator has sought every soul in His loving compassion, that none would be lost.  He who creates and sustains every soul which shall ever be born into this world, sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die for the whole world, that He might meet every person as their Savior rather than their Judge.  Hear Him call to you today, that you might leave behind the ways which lead to death and eternal destruction.  Hear His Word of grace and abide in Him by the faith He so freely gives to you by His Holy Spirit, that you may meet Him forgiven and free, no longer standing under the Law by the merits of your own selfish works, but in the righteousness imputed to you from Jesus.  Hear His Word call you out of the ways of death, offering freely to you the grace which prepares you to meet Him in mercy and hope, for the sake of His own sacrifice in your place upon the Cross.  The hour is late, and His coming is already foretold as an hour no one knows, whether it is the end of your earthly life or the end of this whole world.  May the Word of the Lord make you wise by His Spirit, that faith and repentance may keep you in the grace of His Gospel forevermore, and that you may meet your Maker on that last day as your loving Savior rather than your inescapable Judge.  Amen.