The Day of Judgement is here!
What do you see?
Perhaps you have the image
of Our Lord sitting on His throne
sending the sheep to Heaven
and the goats to Hell.
Perhaps you see Him
wearing a judge's wig
with a stern expression on His face.
Perhaps you hear Him
pronounce sentence
in a deep, grim voice
while all around
angels circle
ushering in the defendants,
escorting the blessed to Heaven
and driving the damned to Hell.
Perhaps, through it all
you hear that phrase repeated,
"Sin cannot stand in the presence of God."
Day of wrath and doom impending!
No wonder St Peter is terrified.
[PAUSE]
We are very used
to the image of sin and punishment
as being a legal affair.
And this is certainly
how St Peter sees it.
In recognising God standing
waiting for him on the shore,
he recognises
his own deficiencies
his failings,
his fear that causes him
to deny his God.
He cannot abide this
so He pushes God away,
not only in fear of his life,
but also of shame for sin
and the fires of Hell.
Notice this!
He is the one pushing God away.
God is drawing him near.
There is a bizarre tug of war here.
[PAUSE]
The image of God as judge
is perhaps too well established
in our thinking for our own good.
We only have human law-courts
and our experience of them
and we frame our expectation
of God's judgement of us
in that way.
Some of us will only ever see
law courts on the television
and these will be overdramatic
and focused entirely
on the bad guy getting his comeuppance
and the good guy being acquitted.
But our law is a shadow
of God's divine law.
What we fail to see
is the face of God
burning with a desire for us
to be whole again.
Look at the Holy Scriptures
from beginning to end.
Time and time again,
God comes to us face to face
but we turn away from Him,
so He approaches in a different direction
and we turn away from Him.
At every stage,
He presents Himself
sits with us
and tells us the truth.
He gives us every opportunity
to find Him,
begs us to turn to Him,
but in our selfish pride
we don't want to find Him
because our sin turns us away.
So we try and turn and turn and turn.
We spin on the spot
trying to cope with the presence
of God that wills our good,
seeks our health
desires our presence
and rejoices in our being.
Afraid that the image of God as Judge
will cast us away
into the forgotten wastes.
And what happens
when God speaks to us
when His very presence
shows us how fallen we are?
"Fear not!"
[PAUSE]
Fear not.
The Judge is not what you think.
Yes, He discerns Good and Evil
but He does so knowing everything
perfectly.
He does so with the intention
of doing something about it
healing,
restoring,
cleansing,
forgiving.
The Light if His Goodness
burns our sinful souls
but, rather than push Him away,
we have to embrace Him
and let the burning love
rid us of our
most cherished misery,
our favourite sins,
our greatest faults
that, for whatever reason,
we can't let go.
It's the goats who won't let go
and who run away in fear
that God won't let them be
as they want to be
and who refuse the courage
to step forward into the arms
of their creator.
They have their reward.
But for those who turn
and trust the Lord
when He tells us not to be afraid,
we are given ...
Work.
A job to do.
Fish for men!
Feed the hungry!
Clothe the naked!
Preach the Gospel!
Give opportunities for people
to see Christ,
to fear Him,
and to dispel that fear
by seeing beyond our childish
perception of what it means
to be Judge in purest love!
He gives opportunities
to confront people
with His love.
Invite them to Joy!
Reel them in!
Don't push them away!
[PAUSE]
Our Lord will sit in judgement on us.
He sees our sins
and He hates our sins.
He hates them because
they stop us from coming to Him.
We should push them
out of our way to Christ
and let ourselves get drawn in
towards Him
and to Eternal Joy in Him.
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