The Mercy of the Dread Judgment

Today is the Sunday of the Dread Judgment, on which we hear the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats read from the Holy Gospel. In just one short week we will enter once again through the gates of repentance, and begin once more the salvific struggle of the Great and Holy Fast. Fr. Seraphim (Rose) — of blessed memory — once said the following profound words:

Our Christianity is a religion which tells us about what we are going to be doing in eternal life. It is to prepare us for something eternal, not of this world. If we think only about this world, our horizon is very limited, and we don’t know what’s after death, where we came from, where we’re going, what’s the purpose of life. When we talk about the beginning of things, or the end of things, we find out what our whole life is about.

Genesis, Creation, and Early Man

It is precisely in this spirit that the Holy Church commands us, on this penultimate Sunday before Great Lent, to bring to mind and meditate upon the Last Judgment. This Dread Judgment will occur at the end of time itself, and at that fearful hour each of us will stand before Christ and be called to account not only for our thoughts and our deeds, but even for “every idle word” as He Himself has said (Matt. 12:36). Likewise, although we commonly call next Sunday “Forgiveness Sunday,” it is perhaps more properly called “The Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.” Therefore on these final two Sunday before Great Lent, the Holy Church leads us to meditate on the beginning and end of this world — so that we might truly “find out what our whole life is about,” as Fr. Seraphim (Rose) said: “something eternal, not of this world.” It is only by setting our eyes on Christ and on eternity that our coming Lenten struggles will have any meaning or purpose.

But perhaps it might seem to us that this particular Sunday — the Sunday of the Dread Judgment — is somewhat out of keeping with the three that have gone before. On Zacchaeus Sunday, we saw the mercy of Christ as He deigned to dine with one of the worst traitors and apostates in Israel. On the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, we saw the mercy of Christ as He forgave a lifetime of sins in exchange for one simple prayer. On the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, we saw the mercy of God as the Father joyfully embraced the same son who had wasted everything he had ever been given in his entire life. But today, on the Sunday of the Dread Judgment, we instead see Christ pronouncing the awful words: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). We might be tempted to wonder: where is the mercy of Christ? Where is the love of God?

If the Sunday of the Dread Judgment seems harsh and merciless and unloving to us — if it seems perhaps to even be speaking of some other God entirely — then it might be (at least in part) because we are misunderstanding the meaning of the word “judgment.” “God the Judge” is not — as we might often unconsciously assume — simply another way of saying “God the Accuser” or “God the Punisher” or “God the Condemner.” Far from it! A judge — quite simply, and above all else — is someone who speaks the truth. Therefore, the purpose of the Dread Judgment at the end of time itself will be for us to finally learn the truth about our own hearts — a truth that only God can possibly reveal.

Perhaps it seems to us that we already (more or less) know the truth about ourselves, and that this sort of judgment is therefore not such a great thing. But let us mark it well: in today’s Gospel reading, everyone who heard the judgment of God on their lives was surprised. The truth is that we all know far less about ourselves than we might think. St. Paul himself — who “was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (II Cor. 12:4) — said:

I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself… He that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.

I Cor. 4:4-5

Yet to leave all judgment unto God does not at all mean that we are therefore to be heedless toward our own souls. On the contrary! On today of all days, we must show the utmost care to obey the exhortation of the Apostle Peter: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Pet. 5:8). Remember that the Holy Fathers tell us that the man who sees his sins is greater than the man who sees the angels. And so on each and every day of our lives, we should fall down before God and beg Him to give us one of the greatest of His gifts: to give us a foretaste of the Dread Judgment, to show us our sins.

At the monastery, it is not an uncommon occurrence for the brethren to become discouraged, thinking that they are becoming worse as monastics instead of better. Of course there is nothing magical about entering a monastery, and it is indeed perfectly possible to grow spiritually sicker there instead of becoming more healthy. But oftentimes this is not what is actually happening. Instead, these brethren are simply starting to really see themselves for the first time, being no longer able to hide and distract themselves from the state of their own hearts by means of worldly occupations and diversions and cares. They think they are getting worse, but in fact they are being healed: because there can be no healing without repentance, and there can be no repentance until God helps us to see our own sins.

This is the great and holy gift which the Church is giving us on this Sunday — a Sunday that is therefore no less a revelation of the mercy of God than the three which came before. The Lord has told us everything in advance, calling out to us time and time again: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). Therefore it is as Met. Tikhon (Shevkunov) wrote in his wonderful book Everyday Saints:

…the human soul after death, once it is separated from its body and presented to a new world, will no longer be able to blame someone else for not having been forewarned. It will not be possible to shout like a schoolchild: “We were never taught this! We were never assigned this!”

We were taught, and we were assigned this. And everything we needed to know was explained to us.

And so, as I said, this gift of divine knowledge — about this world and the world to come, about our own sinful hearts and the All-Merciful Christ our Savior — is given to us by the Holy Church on this Sunday. But it is not the only gift. I asked (rhetorically) before: “Where is the mercy of Christ? Where is the love of God?”

Over the past three Sundays, we have seen divine mercy and divine love shine forth in the person of Christ. But today — today, we see divine mercy and divine love shine forth in people. We see the fulfillment of the promise of theosis, deification, the mystical union of man with God. Let us listen again to the words of the Holy Gospel:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me…. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Matt. 25:34-36, 40

In this Gospel passage, we see Christ Himself in the mercy and love of the righteous, and we see Christ Himself in those to whom they show mercy and love; we see the eschatological fulfillment of the words of St. Paul: “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11). For truly, at the end of all things there will be only one thing by which any of us will be judged: does Christ — with all of His mercy and all of His love — live in us (cf. Gal. 2:20), or not?

In this spirit, I will leave you with the following exhortation of St. Paul:

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.

Col. 3:12-17

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.