When the Son of Man Comes
Matthew
25:31-46
This
is the end of Jesus’ teaching ministry. Three
years of wandering and three years of speaking to everyone who would
listen reaches its climax here. This
is the completion of everything he has tried to reveal. Jesus
pictures “the Son of Man” coming in glory. He
takes up the ancient image of the one who will arrive, riding on the
clouds to establish the reign of God on earth. But
“the Son of Man”, simply “human being” is the one title he
has consistently used of himself.
When
the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he
will sit on the throne of his glory.
Jesus
promises his own return. This
time when he comes, it will not be not as a helpless child who grows
with a fragile vulnerable human body. But
it will be as one who while they look like a human being, also shares
the visible quality of the divine, glory! This
time there will be no mistaking who he his. There
will be no room for doubt. This
time there will be no possibility of denial or rejection. There
will be no question that Jesus is Lord. This
point will be reinforced
because the Son of Man will arrive accompanied by an angel army.
This
is quite unlike anything else that Jesus has shown us. Almost
all of his talk about the kingdom has been veiled. The
kingdom of heaven has always been very near at hand with Jesus. But it has always remained just out of sight, hinted at, alluded to. Jesus
has spoken of God’s rule obliquely. He
has hinted at it in other things. He
has told stories about servants and masters, about wedding feasts and
their guests, about fathers and their obedient and disobedient sons. Indeed
he has told stories about all three of these in the moments leading
up to this promise of the coming of the Son of Man. His
stories up to now have begun in the “this-worldly”, and have used
what we already know and already experience as a window for us to
peer through. Then
suddenly he has always surprised us, in some strange twist of his
story telling he shows us for a moment a glimpse of what the kingdom
of heaven, what God’s reign will be like. But
here, nothing is hidden. He
speaks with absolute
candour and complete directness.
Yet
this very exposure hides the reality from us! The
strangeness of the picture leaves us struggling to comprehend: the
Sone of Man, glory, angels, and one seated on a throne with all the
nations gathered before him. This
is beyond what we have known or felt. This
strangeness leaves our minds and our emotions wanting to reject what
we are being shown. Yet
this is what Jesus is holding our for us and for the whole world. This
is the final decisive promise to be found in everything he has taught
us. He
will come in glory, and he will finally and fully establish God’s
peaceful and just reign among us.
As
much as his picture of the end of the future is strange, his
portrayal of the world is realistic and familiar. Jesus’
portrayal
of the end of history points us to the reality which has existed all
along. All
along there have been two kingdoms. From
the beginning of time it was ever thus. There
has been a kingdom where God has reigned. And
there has been a negative counter kingdom. The
two have always existed confused and interwoven in the ambiguities of
history. Though
God’s rule is immeasurably stronger than its opposite the two have
always existed together. This
is so even if at times the two kingdoms have seemed almost equally
matched, and that opposite kingdom has been the one which has been
much easier to see. God’s
final victory and everlasting reign has never been in doubt. Even
as we have witnessed evil thrive, and have seen terrible suffering
inflicted. We
have also seen grace and mercy, love and kindness emerge and survive
even in the midst of those things. The
arrival of the Son of Man signals the separation of those two
kingdoms. His
arrival will fulfil the deepest longing of the whole human race. The
end of history will be when
all the ambiguities are removed. Good
and evil will be disentangled from one another. There
will be no more confusion between what might be good and what is
evil. What
is good will be kept forever. What
is evil will be destroyed. The
last words of Jesus’ teaching hold out this promise for us. He
will return. Evil
will be removed. God’s
reign of peace will be fully established. However
it is actually put into words this is in fact the aspiration of every
human society, every culture, every ideology, every religion. The
whole human race race longs for the end of suffering and the triumph
of goodness.
It
is a common feature of Jesus’ teaching to make that division into
two parts. Most
recently as he has taught in the temple he has pointed again and
again to two groups: He
has spoken of the wise and the foolish. He
has spoken of the worth and the worthless. And
he has spoken of the obedient and the disobedient. So
it is no surprise that in is final image he pictures the Son of Man
sitting on the throne of glory and:
He
will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the
sheep from the goats
The
end of history is a judgement. Perhaps
this is the most discomforting part of the picture for us. We
have become resistant to the idea of judgement. And
our discomfort is not lessened by the images which Jesus leaves us
with as the outcome of this great separation:
You
that are accursed, depart from me into the fire prepared for the
devil and all his angels.
And
his final image:
And
these – those to his left, the goat, the unrighteous – will
go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.
Part
of us, and it’s not the best part of us, does fantasise
destruction, and punishment of the worst sort on evil doers. And
to some extent we as as a society act out those fantasies against
those whom we judge criminal. But
it is precisely this that which makes the better part of us
uncomfortable with the everlasting judgement made in this scene. We
have been witnesses to too much of the possibility of injustice to
ever feel that a truly just judgement could be possible, especially
not one as final as the on being offered here. There
are those we are convinced deserve that everlasting judgement against
them, but where that boundary, between the sheep and the goats,
between the righteous and the accursed, where that boundary lies is a
concern to us. It
is a concern as old as Abraham and his anxiety over God’s proposed
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. As
we move away from the clearly and decisively evil we worry about
final judgement resting against anyone, and become uncomfortable with
the notion of judgement at all. We
worry even about finding ourselves on the right side of the great
separation when that time comes.
Jesus
is conscious of this, which is why his final sequence of parables
addressed to his followers - some of which we have listened to over
the last couple of weeks – deal with this topic. He
has warned his followers to be productive and to be aware. But
in the end for us that separation is made on the basis of our
relationship with him. Jesus
is the key to this final scene. He
is decisive in the separation which takes place. He
is the one who comes. He
is the king of sits on the throne. He
is the judge who passes judgement on the righteous and unrighteous. He
is the shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. Which
is why we can have confidence in the justice of that last judgement. Jesus
is Lord!
What might be easy to miss, is that we are not directly participants in the scene which Jesus is picturing. We
are bystanders here. What
Jesus pictures for this final moment of history is a gathering
together of “all the nations.” There
is something lost in translation here. What
it says
is: πάντα
τὰ ἔθνη
(panta
ta ethne). Which
is literally “all the nations”, but also has a more technical
meaning. It
could equally be translated: All the Gentiles. Those
who gather before Jesus are all those who are not already part of
God’s people. Everyone’s
being and everyone’s ultimate future depends on Jesus, whether they
know it or not. Jesus
is Lord! This
is the decisive claim of Christianity. And
it is a universal claim. Jesus
is Lord of everyone and everything in every place and every time. This
is another aspect of the Christian message which sometimes now
discomforts us.
But
the test which Jesus sets is a simple one: Do
you feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty,
welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the
imprisoned. The
standard by which Jesus as shepherd and judge separates the people of
the world is clear. Do
you care for the vulnerable around you? Actually
there is noting distinctively Christian about this standard. A
wide range of religions, philosophies and moral codes would agree
that these actions would form the basis of what we might call
righteous behaviour. In
the end this
is about morality, it is about ethics. Jesus
at this point says nothing about faith or belief whatsoever. For
the nations and for each person amongst them it really does come down
to whether you live a good life or not. Ethics
is primary.
But
as I said we are bystanders in this scene. This
is not the standard which is being applied to us. When
it comes to his own Jesus does talk about faith and about trust and
about loyalty. It
is about our relationship, individually and as a people to him. Except,
how is that loyalty expressed? The
nations are mystified when judgement is passed against them. Both
sides, both the righteous and the accursed cannot understand what has
happened to them, and how they missed the test that had been set:
When
was it Lord that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked
or sick or in prison.
Neither
the righteous nor the accursed recognised the presence of Jesus in
the world. Both
acted out of their own characters,
for good or evil. In
the end they are being judged for the content of their souls. We
too will be judged for the content of our souls, a content which is
shaped by our loyalty Jesus and the effect that loyalty has on who we
are. So
the question in all of Jesus teaching for us, in all his promises and
warnings about the coming of God’s kingdom, is;
where do we find Jesus and how do we express that loyalty? And
this is determined by one last thing which Jesus says about himself:
Truly
I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are
members of my family, you did it to me.
Jesus
identifies himself with the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick
and imprisoned. Where
human needs exists there Jesus is to be found. Those
who know nothing of Jesus can be and will be judged by Jesus because
he is always present in the poor and vulnerable. How
they are treated is how he is being treated. The
answer to the question, how do
we express or faith, how do we show our loyalty to Jesus? is the
same. By
taking care of those in need. In
a different
place Jesus expresses his final teaching to those who are his
followers in different words:
I
give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have
loved you, you also should love one another.
Amen.
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