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In the name of Jesus. Amen.
In 1999 NASA launched the Stardust spacecraft. Five years later (2004), the spacecraft came within 150 miles of the Comet Wild (pronounced Vilt, named after the Swiss discoverer Paul Wild) and collected thousands of tiny dust particles streaming from its nucleus. Another 2 years later (2006) Stardust returned a conical canister which parachuted onto the desert flats of Utah. After having gazed into the heavens, scientists then gazed through microscopes at the comet dust, hoping to discover some clues to the mystery of life. When the 12 year mission ended in 2011, the spacecraft had traveled nearly 5.7 billion miles.
However, centuries before science became the primary judge of life’s meaning, artists were also gazing into the heavens. But they created paintings of a different judgment. They painted their pictures of the heavens opening on the last day, the day of judgment, as Christ descends on a throne and the dead rise from their graves.
The Rev. Dr. David R. Schmitt, Professor of Practical Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri writes the following illustration:
“In painting Christ’s return at the last judgment, artists have struggled with how to paint the faces of people raised from the dead and being judged by Christ. Do they paint faces you can recognize? Should they dare to paint their own?”
One example is The Last Judgment, painted on a wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City by 16TH century Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo. The altar fresco is a depiction of the return of Christ on the Last Day and God’s eternal judgment of all humankind. Michelangelo included St. Bartholomew, the apostle, in the painting. One tradition of the account of Bartholomew’s death was that he was skinned alive. So, he is depicted here holding his flayed skin and the knife with which he was skinned. But Michelangelo painted his own face on Bartholomew’s skin. Some art historians believe that this is evidence of Michelangelo's self-doubt, since the lifeless skin in the painting is held precariously over Hell.
Thanks be to God that we do not rely on scientists or artists to depict the mystery of life both temporal and eternal. Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us a reliable picture of the kingdom of heaven. In today’s Gospel, the parable of the sheep and the goats (St. Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus teaches us to understand our place in His Kingdom of Grace in the Church today, as well as our place in the Kingdom of Glory – “the life of the world to come.”
This Last Sunday of the Church Year brings the Last Day to our attention. Today, we will reflect on St Matthew’s Divinely-inspired Gospel and there discover what Christ reveals about the Last Day’s Judgment and the mystery of eternal life. On the basis of today’s Holy Gospel and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, we consider the theme: “The Glorious Return of Christ and the Final Judgment.”
Before talking about the end, Jesus talks about the beginning: He welcomes the sheep on His right, believers, saying, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (v 34). Then to the goats on His left, the wicked unbelievers, He says, “Depart … into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (v 41).
Did you catch that? At the beginning, God had intended that humankind would be part of His eternal kingdom. Jesus says that hell was not intended for people, but for the devil and his demons. God doesn’t “send” people to hell, they are told to “depart” because of their own choosing to reject Jesus and God’s original plan to be in eternal fellowship with Him … a rejection seen in self-righteous attitudes that somehow consider works to be deserving of God’s acceptance and approval.
There are likely many that interpret parable being about the end of the world. That is too simplistic, in my opinion. I also see Jesus offering us a different view of the world, as God intended it. God’s original design is for humankind to live in relationship with him, and so the final appearing of Christ on the last day is the day when God’s plan for His creation to be fully realized. We believe, teach and confess the “resurrection of the body” and our confidence in “the life of the world to come.”
Everyone who has turned away from God, rejecting his design and falling into sin because we inherited the original sin in the Garden of Eden, is now corrupted by the sinful nature seen in our actual sins against God … sins not only of commission (what we do), but of omission (what we fail to do) as seen in the judgment of the goats. Because of our sinful nature and any actual sin of which we are guilty we deserve physical death and eternal punishment in hell. Because God does not want us to perish temporally or eternally, He turns toward those who have turned away from Him, and He calls us to repent. And when we do repent it is by God Himself enabling us to have sincere sorrow for our sin, to believe “that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ” (AC XII) and to want to do better than to keep on sinning.
When we repent then God forgives us of our sinful nature and all our actual sins. He return us to His original plan by forgiving us for Jesus’ sake. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul explains this in 2 Corinthians 5:21 as follows: “God made [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Sin was destroyed at Calvary even as Christ carried all of it for all of humankind in His own body. At the cross Jesus is your substitute … the innocent for the guilty. He suffered and died in your place to pay the penalty for your sins. He rose again from the dead – victorious over sin, Satan and death. And now forgiveness, life and salvation is available through faith in Christ Jesus.
When the Spirit brings us to repentance and faith, we hold to the saving promise of the Gospel and we are declared righteous. The Hebrew word for righteous is “tsadiq” and literally means “that which is altogether right” or “the way things are supposed to be.” As the Spirit continues His work in us, He sanctifies us as the Word of God bears the fruit of faithful obedience in our lives, which, indeed, is “the way things are supposed to be.” On the Last Day, we will be surprised as Christ reveals the “way things are supposed to be” among us … pointing to acts of faith as good works – lives lived in service to others – including those hungering, thirsting, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned – all as service to Christ Himself.
In the Epistle we heard “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24). But this Last Day is also a beginning: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says our Lord, “the first and the last, the beginning and the end” as was chanted in the Verse (Rev 22:13).
For us, both the end and the new beginning are good news. Today’s Epistle declares, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Indeed, the eternal life Jesus has won for us is certain as the Spirit brings us to faith and strengthens that faith by the means of Grace: the Holy Scriptures and the Sacraments. Our eternal life with God begins as we are Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection … our eternal life continues in the comfort and consolation of having the forgiveness of sins applied personally and individually in Holy Absolution … and our eternal life continues as we are nourished in the Holy Supper with bread which is the true body of Christ given for us and wine which is the true blood of Christ shed for us.
Though ascended into heaven, Jesus continues to shepherd His sheep through His Word, in all of its forms until the day of His return to separate those who trust in Him for righteousness from those who do not and to give to the faithful God’s original intention … a life of eternal fellowship with Him.
Yes, we are declared fully righteous for Christ’s sake, but we still daily sin much. So, God graciously gives us His Word and the Sacraments that we are strengthened in repentance and faith to live in righteousness as God intended. A righteous life that looks “forward to a new heaven and a new earth” (2 Pet 3:13 NIV) which is “the home of righteousness” as the antiphon of the Introit declared.
People today still look to art, science, astronomy and even pagan astrology to try to make sense out of life. How blessed we are that daily our lives are now shaped by Christ the King who describes the last judgment in such a manner as we have heard this morning. Even as we prayed in today’s Collect: “Enable us to wait for the day of His return with our eyes fixed on the kingdom prepared for Your own from the foundation of the world.”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.