December 4

Julian, Minister of Missions

Psalm 130; Matthew 35:31–46 Advent is a time of hopeful waiting for the King’s return and a time for repentance. I think of the Advent candles, Advent calendars and carol singers our family enjoyed during my childhood in England. They provided an almost warm, homey feel to the season; but Jesus’ account of eternal punishment and eternal life is anything but that. It’s not what you might expect in some fairy-tale ending to a Netflix Advent movie. It jolts you. “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). When the King returns in glory, that separation will be final. Why is eternal punishment and eternal life so difficult for us modern people to accept? One philosopher, the Canadian Charles Taylor, suggests that modern people no longer believe that there is an eternal God who works within time. Over the past five hundred years we have come to believe time within the universe is a matter of indefinite progress. It is not linear in the sense that a reigning, sovereign God began the world (Genesis 1:1) and has chosen a day to bring about its end – destroying it, judging the nations (2 Peter 3:3-7), and then establishing a re-created new heavens and earth for those in allegiance to him. “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). We need to re-calibrate if this is true acknowledging the modern progress story is a myth. As one theologian phrased it, “Those who made a profession of faith, yet did not express that new life in a new lifestyle, marked by a hatred of sin and works of loving service to God and to others will be lost.” They failed in the six representative categories Jesus highlights here. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45). How prepared are you? Merciful God, give us grace today to heed the warnings of Jesus, to repent, and to forsake our sins that we may greet his return with joy. Amen.