Second to Last Sunday of the Church Year
2 Peter 3.3-14 + Matthew 25.31-46
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We heard these comforting words in last week’s epistle: “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess 4.16-17). Christ will return openly for all the world to see. He will raise the dead to new life and they, together with Christians who are alive on that day, will be gathered to Christ. In today’s epistle we hear of another event to occur on the day when the Lord returns. St. Peter tells us, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.” This world—and everything in it and the worldly way of life—will be destroyed by fire. The earth and the cosmos we live in are in bondage to sin and must be destroyed so that God may create new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
And in today’s gospel we hear of yet another event on that Last Day: The Final Judgment. Christ will return in His glory—His divinity shining through His human nature as it did at His transfiguration—and all the holy angels will be with Him. He will sit on the throne of His glory. All nations—the living and those whom He resurrected from the dead, all people who have ever lived—will be gathered before Him. From all the nations, every person individually will be judged. It will be like when a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. He then presents witnesses to confirm His judgment. Those on the right did works of mercy for the brethren, while those on Christ’s left did not do works of mercy for the brethren. Then comes the final verdict. Those on His left hand will go into everlasting punishment. Those on His right hand—the righteous—will go into the bliss of eternal life.
If you were to ask Christians which articles of the Faith comfort them and encourage them, the Final Judgment probably would not be one of them. We expect that unbelievers would take no comfort in the Final Judgment. In fact, we would find that they do not believe in a final judgment. The more vocal of them would say something like the scoffers that St. Peter speaks of in in the epistle, who say, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” We expect the unbeliever not to take any comfort in the final judgment. If anything, the church confesses the Final Judgment to the unbelieving world so that the threat of eternal punishment, the threat of being judged by God and found unworthy of everlasting life, might bring some people repentance. Peter even tells us this why the Lord delays judgment. He is patient towards us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
And if the Final Judgment should terrify the wicked and unbelieving, why isn’t it something that Christians look forward to? Why, then, isn’t this article of faith—and He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead—comforting and encouraging for those who believe Christ’s words? It may be because we hear Jesus’ words and think that our good works will be the basis for the judgment. Jesus tells those on His right, “I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.” This is the portion of the text that people seem to remember most clearly, probably because Jesus then says to those on His left, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.” So many Christians hear Jesus’ words and understand Him mean that if you want to be judged as a sheep and placed on His right hand, you’d better get busy and start earning it.
Well-intentioned Christians also hear that they do works of mercy for Christ Himself when they do them “to one of the least of these My brethren,” and assume that this means any every poor, destitute, and or marginalized person whom the world sees as the least. Assuming that the poor are Jesus’ brethren, they seek to do works of mercy for anyone who needs them. Now, there is nothing wrong with doing works of mercy for the neighbor God puts in our path. But Jesus is speaking to something more specific than the random neighbor who needs food and drink, shelter, clothing, and companionship. Jesus’ brethren are not all mankind, nor does He give that title to the poor simply because they are poor. The brethren of Jesus are believers. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Paul says (Gal 3:26). Jesus Himself says, “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” Jesus commends the sheep for their works of mercy towards Christians—more than that—their fellow Christians, who do works of mercy for one another not to become righteous, but because they are righteous by faith in Christ.
Before Jesus brings forward the sheep’s works of mercy as witnesses, He says, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The sheep are blessed of God the Father. God the Father speaks well of the sheep. Why? Not because of their works of mercy, but as Jesus tells the disciples John 16:27, “The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” The sheep believe in God’s Son—not by their ability, but by God’s gift—and that God counts that faith in Christ as righteousness in His sight. God the Father forgives the sins—all the sins—of those who believe in His Son and love Him, so that those sins are no more. By faith our sins are blotted out like a thick cloud (Is 44:22), cast into the depths of the sea (Mic 7:19), for God has promised in Jeremiah 31:34, “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” It is to believers who persevere in faith until the end that Jesus says, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” As Jesus’ brethren, the sheep love their neighbor—yes, every neighbor whom God places in their path—but especially their fellow Christians, and these works for the brethren bore witness to their faith in Christ and their love for Him.
This is why you should look forward to judgment. It is not a day of wrath for those who believe in Christ. It is not a day to have your sins—even the ones which are known only to you and God—revealed for all mankind to see and hear. Your sins are forgiven, and God remembers them no more. It certainly is not a day to fear because of the smallness, the incompleteness, or the imperfection of your good works to others. Christ joyfully receives them because they are they done in faith.
The unbeliever has everything to fear from that day, which is part of the reason they deny it will happen. Even if they have truckloads of charitable deeds, helping the poor and those whom society labels as the least, none of them are good in God’s sight because they were not done in faith, by those who believes Christ and enjoys the forgiveness of sins and righteousness in God’s sight. As St. Paul says in Romans 14:23, “Whatever is not from faith is sin,” and in Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” But for you—and all who are righteous by faith, the judgment is something to look forward to. In this life, the Final Judgment encourages us to works of mercy for the brethren, for when Christ returns, those works will bear witness to the fact that we believed the Lord Jesus Christ, received the forgiveness of all our sins, and perfect righteousness. Look forward to the resurrection of the body. Look forward to the destruction of the old creation and the new heavens and new heart. And look forward to the judgment! For on that day you—and all who persevere in faith until the end, will hear these words, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
