Re-Reading Revelation: Joy and Judgment (Chs. 19-20)

Judgment is something of a frightening theme throughout the book of Revelation. The theme is constant throughout the text. In the prologue, John warns that "the time is near" and, in his greeting, goes farther by warning that "every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail[a] on account of him." While John adds the resignation, "Even so, let it be" there is a certain sense in which you can expect the churches not to want to put their own "amen" on that particular sentiment. In the letters which launch the book, the prospect of judgment for the clearly flawed kingdom of God is frightening. The insinuations included in those letters are given teeth as God acts on His promise of judgment for the rest of the book. Stars fall from the heaven, rivers dry up, monstrous locusts torture humanity, and they are finally harvested into a winepress and crushed to death. Judgment is ugly business.

It would stand to reason then that when the time for final judgment actually rolled around that the Christians in the narrative of Revelation would respond to the prospect of judgment much in the same way we do, with fear, trembling, and uncertainty. It is curious to find that just the opposite is true. After looking on to chapters of the terrible outpouring of God's wrath, the Christians approaching final judgment are positively exuberant. In the course of a single chapter there is a cluster of three of the most exultant hymns of the entire text. First the great multitude sings:

Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.

And the elders answer, "Amen. Hallelujah." Then a voice from the throne says:

Praise our God,
all you his servants,
you who fear him,
small and great.

Then the multitude begins again:

Hallelujah!For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure.

Given that the final roll call is about to be taken, we might expect a great deal more trepidation on the part of the multitude. Instead, they are praising God specifically for the truth and justice of His judgment. Too often, we take away from the text of Revelation just how frightening is the wrath of God, and that is, as far as it goes, an appropriate message. That is not, however, the primary message that the multitude in heaven seems to be taking away from the cosmic judgment drama that it has seen unfold. Quite the contrary, they seem to take note of just how righteously God has dispensed His justice. If you think back on the recipients of divine wrath, they are the sexually libertine, the idolatrous, the apostates, the murderous, and the avaricious. More than anything, however, it is the unrepentant. Quietly, subtly, John issues in Revelation no less than ten different calls to repentance or rebukes for being unrepentant. Faced with the continuous experience of divine rebuke and a constant stream of witnesses to the Gospel--including John, those beheaded for Christ, anyone who reads the text of Revelation, the squatters living under the altar, and other notables--the most notorious targets of God's wrath are those obstinate members of the human race who would still rather debauch, murder, and steal than direct their worship to its appropriate object.

It is no wonder then that the church, clothed in the pure white linen which is "the righteous deeds of the saints," should welcome God's judgment. They have correctly understood the Gospel, that salvation is for all who would turn from sin and to God. Wrath, in contrast, is reserve for those who stubbornly and in spite of all divine prompting prefer sin and death to righteousness and life. This disposition of the church is vindicated as judgment finally plays out. The righteous rule with Christ, heavenly fire consumes the enemies of the church, Satan is cast into the eternal fire with the beast and the prophet, Death follows shortly after into the pit of fire, and all humanity is fairly "judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done."

Judgment should scare us. Clearly Jesus expects it to when he invokes it during the course of his ministry and when he employs the prospect of it to inspire repentance among the churches in Revelation. On the other hand, the fear of the prospect of judgment is certainly only a means to an end. In the final reckoning of things, judgment is not something to be feared but something to delight in, not because we relish the prospect of punishment but because we delight in our service of a just God. Judgment, as much as it is an expression of wrath against evil, is first and foremost the moment our salvation is actualized. It is the moment when, after a life of service and devotion, we come before the throne to hear that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life. All too often, our collective Christian imagination sees final judgment as a moment of intense fear as we stand before a stern judicial figure rescued only by a last minute intercession of Christ as our advocate. The image Revelation gives us is different. It is one of joyous anticipation, in which we can cry out confidently in advance "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just."

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Three Angels (Excursus 2)

There is a gem buried in the midst of the great battle narrative. In chapter fourteen--just as God begins His earthly victory to mirror the preexistent victory in heaven--three pronouncements are offered by three angels. It's placement in the text would seem to suggest that the angels serve merely as end time heralds of the final triumph of God, yet John introduces this passage with a curious pronouncement of his own: "Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people." It is clear that John intends this message to transcend its place in the narrative. This is a three point sermon for eternity, and its message is no less potent now than when it was recorded.

Grasping the beauty of the passage requires understanding the chiastic structure of the three proclamations. The words of the first and the third angels are almost perfect parallels. The first angel declares that people of all nations should worship the Lord. The third angel gives a gruesome image of those who worship the false gods instead. In a chiasm, the outer parallels function to emphasize the more important central text. It is the message of the second angel that is the key to this enduring homily: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality."

What appears at first glance to be a simple statement of fact--shorter, plainer, and less engaging than the passages around it--actually functions as the explanation for the messages of the other two angels. It was suggested previously that the purpose of the whole battle narrative of chapters twelve through sixteen was to demonstrate to Christians who had every reason to feel as though Satan was winning that in fact God would be and always was the victor. The same theme resounds here and functions as a call to worship in the "eternal gospel." God is victorious and the devil defeated, therefore worship God and despise the devil. At the crux of the narrative, the angels repeat and apply the message of the text in a way that bears our renewed examination.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Great Battle (Chs. 12-16)

After reading the triumphant announcement of the last section in which the kingdom of God is declared to have come at last, it is a bit jarring, to say the least, to enter into this next narrative. The triumphant which is announced is immediately contradicted, at least in appearance, by an ensuing struggle between God and Satan. It begins with the image of a great dragon poised to prey on the newborn infant of promise, an image familiar to Christians familiar with the stories of Moses and Jesus. While the latter is almost certainly who John intends to portray, there is a sense in which it is the principle and not the identity of the unborn child that is important. This is a child for whom God has a definite purpose in the working out of His will. The dragon's menacing purpose is a direct attempt to contravene God's will. In predictable triumph, God spirits the newborn into the throne room and guides the woman into a prepared safe haven. As for Satan, God sends his soldiers out to meet him and, inevitably, they triumph.

Cast from heaven, and frustrated in his attempts to find the woman, Satan turns his wrath on the rest of her offspring (which, interestingly, yields an interesting parallel to the Pauline image of Christ as the new Adam with Mary as the new Even...but I digress). Thwarted time and again, suddenly Satan meets with tremendous success on earth, something heaven was aware would happen: "But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" First a beast rises out of the sea, tempting humanity until "all who dwell on earth will worship it." Then a second beast rises out of the earth and persecutes anyone who does not worship the first beast.

This apparent victory would resonate with John's audience. It is hard to imagine that John isn't intentionally describing the practices of the Roman government with regard to the imperial cult. Christians were under tremendous social and political (even capital) pressure to worship the genius of the emperor. In the syncretistic culture of the early empire, one could be any religion he pleased provided that it didn't conflict with the state religion. Most didn't. Christians, however, worship only one king of kings, and their refusal to burn incense to Caesar would be the impetus for persecution for centuries to come.

What John makes clear and what it is ultimately critical even today is that the victory of Satan on earth is only apparent. Reading chapter thirteen in isolation would lead any intelligent person to believe that Satan has the upper hand and that God and His people are left to look on in horror as the mighty power of the beasts wins the many and destroys those who resist. John makes clear for his readers, however, that the fact that Satan is even wreaking havoc on earth is a product of his constant frustration at the hands of God. God stopped him from devouring the baby; God prevented him from finding the woman; God cast him down out of heaven. Satan stands in a position of perpetual defeat, even before he begins to work his deceit on an unsuspecting humanity. Every time a Christian gets the impression that Satan is triumphing, John commands us to remember that he is only here "winning" because he has already lost.

And, what's more, he has a lot more losing left in him. Chapter fourteen opens with a return to the triumphant imagery of chapter eleven. Jesus is depicted standing gloriously atop Mount Zion as if to say, in simplified English, "...98-99-100. Ready or not, Satan, here I come!" When he does come, it is with power, as the following passage contains some of the book's most gruesome imagery. The sinful peoples of the earth are "reaped" like grapes with a sickle, dropped into a winepress, and crushed so that their blood created a flood as high as a man's shoulder covering an area a little larger than the distance between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. If the "great winepress of God's wrath" weren't enough, there are seven bowls of His wrath as well, which are poured out with consequences vaguely reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt: rivers into blood, hail, boils, darkness, and more.

The point is not, however, the particulars of God's victory of Satan and his beasts but the finality of it. With the pouring out of the seventh bowl of wrath, the angel says, "It is done" and, in fact, it is. When we next encounter Satan some time later, he is bound, and, when he is released, it is only for a perfunctory final skirmish before he is forever cast into hell. With this, John offers comfort and strength to an audience that ultimately is deceived by appearances (a favorite trick of the devil's). Everywhere around them they are confronted by overwhelming evidence that God is absent and the devil triumphant, but these illusions are nothing more than fleeting artifices for a defeated enemy. The great battle narrative of Revelation reminds us that Satan stood defeated before he ever set about his program of leading the world astray. He is not winning now; he is certain not to claim victory in the future.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Two Woes (Ch. 9)

The fifth and sixth trumpets are the first and second (of three) woes to be poured out on the earth. Even more than the trumpets and seals that came before them, these woes seem to be little more than a senseless raking of creation across the coals. The first woe involves the unleashing of an army of monstrous locusts with human faces and scorpion tails. They are empowered to torture--the divine permutation of "enhanced interrogation techniques"--all of creation for five months, such that "in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them." When the five months of unrelenting torture are complete, God is kind enough to oblige the wishes of humanity. The sixth trumpet blows, and the second woe comes in the form of two hundred million chimera-esque warriors tasked with killing one third of the world's population. In the course of a few lines of text, we have a level of carnage that would put Saving Private Ryan to shame.

Yet while so much of the text thus far has focused on revealing truths about the nature of God, John is clearly using this narrative to teach the reader something about the nature of humanity. The moral of the story, tact deftly on to the tail of all the bloodshed is this little revelation: "The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts." That thought, arriving as it does so rapidly on the heels of that awesome display of divine might, justifiably boggles the mind. The foolishness of the lost who pray to the mountains to protect them from their creator has already been highlighted, but with this scene they are shown to truly scale the heights of folly. God reveals Himself in power, in a way which is so patently undeniable that one would assume that humanity could not but turn to God and plead for mercy. That assumption would be incorrect.

With brutal clarity, John displays for the reader the human penchant for obstinacy. Like a divine reversal of the paradisial garden in which Adam and Eve were given every opportunity to avoid sin and found a way to sin anyway, at the end of the world God gives His creation the most powerful motivation imaginable to repent of its evil and turn to its creator. Still, it clings to its idols of murder and theft and sexual licentiousness, not to mention more tangible idols. With two sentences, John challenges the "if only" rhetoric still in use today. "If only God would still speak to us." "If only we had some proof that Jesus rose from the dead." "If only He would give us a sign." The fact of the matter is that even if someone where to be raised from the dead in their midst, they would not believe.

Contemporary Christians can take away from this a comfort that we have been specifically blessed for having believed without having seen. More importantly, however, it is a cautionary tale meant to keep us from wandering into the pitfalls of wanting just a little more proof than we have. We cannot be too often reminded that faith requires...well, faith. It is not about proof, whatever proofs may exist. It is not about well-reasoned arguments, whatever reasoned arguments we can make. It is about belief in and trust of a self-revealing God. It matters little whether we are hard pressed on every side by an oppressive Roman government or by the onslaught of evangelistic atheism. We must remember in whom we have faith and how paramount that faith is. I cannot help but recall the old hymn and concur that I know not why God's wondrous grace to me He has made known, but I know whom I have believed. That should be, for me, enough.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Letters (Chs. 2-3)

After promising the readers a prophecy of things to come in the opening lines of his text, John takes a brief aside to record letters to the churches which are less like prophesies and more like sermons. It is perhaps telling that after the first chapter focuses so keenly on the persecution suffered by Jesus, John, and the churches these letters are not primarily calm reassurances of the seven churches but strongly worded indictments. In a reverse of the structure of Amos--who first directs his attentions to God's enemies before turning viciously on God's people--the frightful Jesus of the first chapter, as the author of the letters, takes aim at his own kingdom even though we all know that his sights will ultimately be set on her enemies.

Amid accolades for their staid endurance under hardship, Jesus peppers the letters with biting imprecations. The Ephesians have forgotten their first love, and, if they cannot get their act together, Jesus promises to come and "remove your lampstand from its place." Pergamum and Thyatira are dens of sexual iniquity, with the latter harboring a seductive prophetess. Of the church in Laodicea he writes, "you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." And if those words to the "lukewarm" Ladocieans are not strong enough, he says of those in Sardis that they are "dead."

The purpose here is obviously not to rain down unqualified condemnation on the churches, and certainly any reader should anticipate--and rightly--that infinitely more forceful judgment is just a page turn away for those who persecute Christ's imperfect churches. The point, then, is to set the right attitude for John's audience. It would be all too easy and altogether inappropriate for the churches to take a divine pledge of fire and brimstone for their enemies and to adopt an air of unjustified self-righteousness. God's judgment is coming not because the churches are perfect but because God is perfect, and Jesus makes clear from the beginning that any hint of self-glory, any impulse to rest on their spiritual laurels would be dangerous.

Instead, he delivers a message of perseverance to the churches which ought to convict contemporary readers as well. Over and over in the letters he repeats his promise to the churches--they will get new names, eat from the tree of life, be spared the second death, sit on a heavenly throne, and more--but he precludes almost every promise with some variation on the phrase "to the one who conquers." It is not enough that Thyatira has endured thus far, that Ephesus once loved God truly, that Pergamum did not deny Jesus' name in the days of Antipas, or that you can remember a time when your faith was strong. In a book which is so often touted as being about "the end," the initial emphasis is not on will happen at the end or when the end will come but on how Christians are to live until the end. The first duty of these suffering Christians, and of all Christians, was not the condemnation of their enemies or dreams of escape into an eternal home but living righteous lives of faith. Jesus forcefully turns the focus of the churches away from his promised justice and onto their own need for personal and corporate repentance. It is almost as if Jesus is playing on his own teaching in Matthew 7, "We're going to deal with the speck in the world's eye, but first let's have a word about the plank in your own."

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

Osama bin Laden is dead. That is clearly old news at this point, but to be quite frank I didn't care much about the fact that he was killed. Tens of thousands of people have died in our crusade to kill this one man. Their deaths collectively seem to merit more attention to me. (For example, more people should really be asking the question: is any man worth it?) We did, however, stay up the night it was announced to see what exactly the president had to say. When Geraldo broke the news to us that the announcement was about bin Laden's death, we went to sleep.

What interests me more than his death is the response that came in the wake of his death. Geraldo was positively giddy, delighted in a way that would have put any school girl to shame. In addition to seeming unprofessional, it struck me as inappropriate that anyone should be so very delighted about the death of another human being no matter how "evil" he may have been. Unfortunately, Geraldo was not alone. The whole country seemed to be elated at the idea that this one man had finally been killed, as if our whole national consciousness had no greater aim in the decade since the September, 11 attacks. It was unnerving. After weeks of believing that I was largely alone in my distaste of this shameless reveling in death, a poll has shown that a majority of American Christians (albeit a slim majority) believe that the response to bin Laden's death was inconsistent with biblical teachings:

Americans are more conflicted over whether Christian values are consistent with the raucous celebrations that broke out after bin Laden was killed. About 60 percent of respondents—ranging from seven in 10 minority Christians to just over half of white mainline Protestants—believe the Bible’s message, “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall,” applies to the death of bin Laden.

I was relieved to find that so many others were uneasy, so many other recognized the blatantly inconsistency between the way Jesus tells us to treat our enemies and the way the American people reacted to bin Laden's death. That relief was, however, immediately met with a new round of disappointment when the same poll revealed that some eighty percent of Evangelicals believe that bin Laden is at this moment burning eternally in hell. Why are we bothering to take a stand on his eternal resting place at all? Are we in the judgement seat? I wonder if perhaps what this poll really reveals is that 80% of evangelicals are too concerned about the eternal disposition of the souls of others and not concerned enough about their own.

In other, even more disturbing, findings:

-- A slim majority (53 percent) of Americans say the U.S. should follow the Golden Rule and not use any methods on our enemies that we would not want used on our own soldiers—down from 2008, when 62 percent agreed.

Support for the Golden Rule principle was strongest among minority Christians, Catholics and religiously unaffiliated Americans (all with majorities above 52 percent), but less so among evangelicals (47 percent) and mainline Protestants (42 percent).

-- Younger Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 (69 percent) are more likely to believe the Bible passage about not celebrating “when your enemies fall” applies to bin Laden than do those age 65 and older (47 percent).

-- Religiously unaffiliated Americans (57 percent) are significantly more likely than Christians to say the use of torture against suspected terrorists can never be justified. Catholics, at 53 percent, are the Christian group most likely to say torture can never be justified.

-- Majorities of white evangelicals (54 percent) and minority Christians (51 percent) believe God had a hand in locating bin Laden, compared to only a third of white mainline Protestants and 42 percent of Catholics.

-- A slim majority (51 percent) of Americans believe God has granted America a special role in human history, led by two-thirds of evangelicals and nearly as many (63 percent) minority Christians, compared to 51 percent of Catholics and white mainline Protestants.

Prothero said he was most surprised by the Golden Rule responses, which indicate that half the country is willing to disregard Christianity’s most commonly expressed teaching—at least, when it comes to wartime.

Merry Judgment Day!

Well, it is May 21st, the day believed by a very vocal minority to be Judgment Day. And there is no reason why it shouldn't be Judgment Day, though I suppose if you're sitting at your computer today reading this it is probably either not Judgment Day or it is too late for you anyhow. While so many reasonable people have laughed off, if somewhat uneasily, these predictions of final judgment today, there is no reason why judgment is any less likely to come at 6 p.m. EST than at any other time. If we appeal to the bibilical promise that no one will know the day or the hour then we forestall judgment forever because inevitably there is someone somewhere convinced that today will be the day (whatever the day may be). In truth, no matter how fervently these predictions are put forward as fact and even if Harold Camping is correct, he didn't know. He just happened to guess right the loudest.

More interesting to me than whether or not judgment is actually reigning down on us (as you read this, of course) is precisely the way people have reacted to the "knowledge" that the end is near. There has been a frantic setting of their moral lives in order and, more publicly, a surge of evangelical effort. But why? The end has been near for thousands of years, at least as far as the apostles were concerned. "The end of all things is at hand" (1 Pet 4:7). People in the earliest Christian decades lived with the constant expectation of an immediate return of Christ, as rightly they should have--even knowing now that the return would not come. After all, Jesus exhorts his disciples to this kind of attitude in Matthew 24:

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Imagine if the money, time, and effort that went into this propoganda campaign about the looming end of the world had been expended in a less controversial (and, from a secular atheistic point of view, laughable) evangelistic enterprise. Or for that matter, distributed to the poor in an effort to be morally upright whether the Lord was coming today or in another two thousand years. I suppose my point is that times like these show clearly the lamentable state of Christian life. We ought to live always as if we are an eschatological people standing right at the brink of eternity. When predictions like this one gain popular currency we see that those who change were not living eschatologically to begin with and those who don't, more likely than not, are simply not convinced that there is any urgency to change.

That day is coming like a theif. It may not have come today; it probably didn't. But when it comes is oddly less important than the fact that it comes. It is real regardless of its precise timing, and we, as Christians, are called to live in the light of that reality.

Judgement Sunday

Scripture:


Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'”

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”

And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal 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 welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”

Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Amos 2:6-8, 3:1-2

Thus says the LORD:

"For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and turn aside the way of the afflicted;
a man and his father go in to the same girl,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge,
and in the house of their God they drink
the wine of those who have been fined…”

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
"You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.

History:

Gregory of Sinai, On Stillness, 14

Many for long years may have been preoccupied with the spiritual life without exerting themselves, or may still be preoccupied with it in this way; but because they do not assiduously embrace hardship with heartfelt fervor and sense of purpose, and have repudiated the severity of bodily toil, they remain devoid of purity, without a share in the Holy Spirit…Instead all we have to boast about is the many profitless years we have spent in the wilderness, lazily cultivating stillness and imagining that we are somebody. At the moment of our death we will all know for certain what is the outcome of our life.

Reflection:

When I saw on the liturgical calendar that there was a Judgment Sunday, I admit that I was instantly thrown off balance. The idea of such a thing absolutely runs against my Protestant upbringing which focuses on unconditional forgiveness and an exceptionally soft view of love. Concepts like hell and judgment were sort of dirty little secrets, disciplinary switches that we tried to keep in our theological closet. We took them out only when necessary and never in front of company.

In reading about Judgment Sunday, however, I find that the idea is not nearly as ominous as the name makes it sound (especially not if you call it by its alternate name, "Meatfare Sunday"). Judgment is a prominent feature in the teaching of Christ, and hell is by no means absent either. Certainly the focus is on the coming of the kingdom, but judgment is an inexorable part of that coming. We profit nothing if we pretend it does not exist. It is no less perilous to ignore it than it is to overemphasize it.

St. John of Sinai speaks of three types of fear in his Ladder of Divine Ascent: fear for one's life otherwise known as cowardice, fear of hell, and the fear of God which is so pure as to be actually fearless. The first is meritless, the second has value, and the third is perfect. Like John, I see purpose in the fear of hell and of judgment. Reading Matthew 25 is a good reminder that salvation is not an invitation for us to rest on our laurels. However you want to explain it, Jesus is clear on more than one occasion that the way we act matters. Not only will our deeds come to light at judgment, but the principle expressed in Amos 3 suggests strongly to me that our lives will be judged by a harsher standard. To know God is to know the higher standard, and to know that standard is to be held to it.

In preparing for Lent it is important to realize three truths. First, our sins have always been inexcusable and our virtues equally insufficient. Second, God needed to offer himself on a cross in order to excuse those sins and to convey his all-sufficiency to us. Finally, neither the first truth nor the second absolve us of our responsibility to repent of our moral failures and to make efforts toward moral improvement.

Prayer:

When You, O God, shall come to earth with glory,
All things shall tremble
And the river of fire shall flow before Your judgment seat;
The books shall be opened and the hidden things disclosed!
Then deliver me from the unquenchable fire,
And make me worthy to stand at Your right hand, righteous Judge!
--Eastern Kontakion

*A note: I realize that Lent has not yet begun for either the Eastern or Western churches. Judgment Sunday, however, marks the beginning of the fast season for the Orthodox. This Sunday is the last when those observing the traditional Lenten fast can eat meat. It is followed by Cheesefare Week when dairy can still be eaten. The following Sunday, Cheesefare Sunday, is the last day when dairy is eaten. Clean Monday then begins the official Lent fast.