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The 24 Sunday after Pentecost
(The Final Sunday of the Church Year
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Matthew 25:31-46
Title: No Fear(!) at the Judgment
Text: Matthew 25:31-46
INI
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When The LORD gave His 10 Commandments to His people at Mt. Sinai, He bestowed on
them a way to govern their lives to show love to Him, and their neighbor. Luther, in His Small
Catechism, places at the Close of these Commandments the words the LORD spoke BEFORE He
listed them off. The LORD prefaced the 10 Commandments saying, “I, the LORD your God, am a
jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of
those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My
Commandments.” All this talk of judgment begs the question in the back of our Catechism, Why
does God threaten…punishment [to the children for the sins of the fathers to the 3rd and 4th
generation of those who hate Him]? Answer? He threatens earthly punishment, physical death,
and eternal damnation… that we would fear His anger, so that we do not act against His
Commandments. Matthew 10:28 Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill
the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” And that’s not the devil
He’s referring to.
Fearing God. That’s not often a topic raised among Christians, at least not in the Lutheran
church. In our lives of comfort and contentment with God the word “fear” in the Catechism is
treated as if it were an accidental word added by Luther. The Word “fear” has been tried to be
updated as if to make God more relevant and inviting to non-Christians, and relaxing to Christians.
For years reasons have been given that we don’t need to “fear” God. “Sure pastor, if the word
“fear” only means to stand in awe and respect of Him, then that’s ok. But to genuinely fear Him?
We don’t have to do that because of Jesus.”
The usage of the term “fear”, I fear, has become watered-down on the drying landscape of
American Evangelical Christianity. It’s a sly trick of the devils lies, “You all don’t have to fear
God ” he utters through the teeth of false preachers and false gospels, “Why would God be angry
when He’s provided you all with comfy lives and easy living, along with forgiveness of Christ. Do
what you think is then OK. God wants you to be merciful to others? Then just “look the other way
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when your friend is active in what those old, legalistic people would dare to call sin”. God desires
that you’re humble? Then just “admit that truth can never really be known.” You can even possess
wisdom, just by “knowing all the traditions and doctrines that were here before you were most
likely made up by ignorant, totally bigoted people and don’t really have a point anyway”i. The trap
is set- and many have fallen into complacency with sin… no longer fearful of God and His anger
upon sin, sinning, and unrepentantance.
But why fear a God who has forgiven our sins? Well, if there is no fear of God, there is no
longer any deterrent from sinning. Instead is lawlessness, leading to licentiousness, leading to allout idolatry… leading to death. As the Psalmist and the proverb both state, “The fear of the LORD
is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge,”
God wants us to keep His commandments perfectly in thoughts, desires, words, and deeds…
but our sinful nature makes this impossible…the Law condemns everyone to damnation. And Jesus
does not hold back a foreboding sense of fear in His prophetic narrative recorded in Matthew 25 as
the sheep and the goats are separated from one another before the Judgment throne.
During the time of the Renaissance, painters were not shy to hold back from their canvases
visual representations of biblical scenes for the Church and the world to behold in awe and
wonderment… and even, well, fear- especially depictions of the events of the Last Day.
Sometimes, that fear changed lives.
Take, for instance, famous English journalist and author Peter Hitchens. He and his brother
were brought into the Christian Church as babies. As they grew up though, they strayed away from
the Church… even becoming atheists. Peter’s brother, Christopher, died in 2011 with a heart
hardened toward God. Now he knows there is a God and we grieve what that will mean for him,
and other unbelievers, on the Last Day when they will be brought to their knees in fear before the
throne.
Peter Hitchens, though, had a different experience of being brought to his knees in the fear
of God. It’s an experience, he says, that changed his life. I promise it wasn’t grace that taught
Peter’s heart to fear. No, it was being faced with God’s thunderous Law that demands punishment
and payment for sin; the horrifying truth of the Judgment of Almighty God, which Peter saw
depicted in (show the picture) this painting. Rogier van der Weyden's Last Judgment Altarpiece.
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This picture, painted in 1443, is still hanging in the same place these 571 years later, in Burgundy,
France. And it stands a whopping 7 feet tall and 18 and a half feet wide!
As you can see, “The [ ] panels contain scenes from the Last Judgment… The large central
panel [ ] shows Christ seated on a rainbow in judgment, with his feet resting on a golden globe.
Below him the Archangel Michael holds scales as he weighs souls. The panel on Christ's far right
shows the gates of Heaven, than to his far left the entrance to Hell. The [lower] panels… form a
continuous landscape, with figures depicted [coming out from the ground, and some still alive, all]
moving from the central panel to their final destinations after receiving judgment.”ii
When Peter Hitchens was a little older than 30, he stood in front of this great and terrifying
picture. In fear, he finally realized who he was before God. He narrates his experience, “No doubt
I should be ashamed to confess that fear played a part in my return to religion, specifically [this
very painting]. I had scoffed at its mention in [my tourist] guidebook, but now I gaped, my mouth
actually hanging open, at the naked figures [departing] towards the pit of Hell. These people did
not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were
naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their
hair and the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me, and people
I knew. I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned
under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my
head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned. Van der
Weyden was still earning his fee, nearly 500 years after his death.”iii
The great and terrifying picture of the Day of Judgment cannot be made pleasing to the eye.
It’s just not possible to attractively dress-up God’s wrath and punishment for sin. No amount of
popular music of the day, stripped down worship liturgy, projection screens, incense, candles,
chanting, genuflecting, colored stoles, padded pews, friendly smiles, or even good words and
handshakes can make the Day of Judgment more attractive and less terrible! No matter how much
artists and authors have tried to dress it up with bright colors, fluffy white clouds, cute angels with
harps and smiling faces, nothing can take away the terror of God’s anger on His fallen creation.
Just ask the people of Israel when the stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, just days after the
LORD had crippled Egypt with plagues and destroyed Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. That
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Mountain was covered in fire, smoke, cloud, and the holiness of God in thundering earthquakes,
and they were absolutely terrified to even go near the mountain as they trembled below as Moses
went up. Before that mountain’s terror, the people of Israel knew who they were before God. (And
yet, still, that fear didn’t keep them all from fashioning a golden calf…)
On the Day of Judgment, everyone will see God in all His glory. All nations will stand
before His throne accountable for their deeds. The righteous will be fearful and confused as the
Son of Man will recount to them their good deeds they performed for Him, and will be welcomed
into eternal life; life that was prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The
unrighteous will also be fearful and confused as King rebukes them for lack of good works,
because they thought lived good lives and always worked hard to please Jesus… and those will be
sent into the eternal punishment that wasn’t prepared for them, but was prepared for the devil and
his angels.
Wait a minute. Did you catch that? The righteous sheep will be commended for their good
works and the goats punished for their lack of them? But isn’t righteousness and salvation based
solely upon grace through faith in Christ Jesus?
Yes…But “Before the kingdom, the judgment. Before resurrection, death. Before Easter,
Good Friday. Before Gospel, Law. One cannot be raised from death to new life unless one is first,
dead…IV” What are you being judged on? Why is there death? Why was there Good Friday?
Why is there the Law?
Because the King will judge the works each of us has done in this life, which, being sinful,
have earned for each and every one of us only eternal death… But God has seen to it that you are
not the one who is to be punished for your sin, nor does HE render a verdict according to what you
have and haven’t done. Your good works have been done for you. The Law that demands
perfection to enter heaven has been fulfilled for you. Your sin has already been punished. You are
rescued from the anger and wrath of God now, and for eternity, because God gave His only
begotten Son into death for you and has so loved you that for His sake you should not perish but
have eternal life.
For there is an ugly picture of sheer beauty that The Father cannot remove from His mind.
It’s a grotesque, blood-speckled, roughhewn cross on which the Prince of Glory died. Men shied
their face from this picture, looked away because of the terror and agony, hid their face in fear and
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shame… None can gaze at this picture and not fear God, for He destroyed His own Son for
sin’s punishment! Jesus was judged guilty of your sin as The Father made Him the victim of the
death that you deserve. In His wounds, you have forgiveness, healing, and rescue from all sin,
death, and the devil. And those same holy hands that were pierced for you will open wide to
welcome you into the life of the world to come when He returns and sits on His throne.
Your judgment is complete. You can stand before God and live. “Not Guilty for the sake
of Christ!” That’s the Judgment that was rendered upon you at your Baptism. There the holy cross
was marked upon your forehead and your heart- the crucifixion of the Christ front and center,
penetrating into your very core, shielding you from God’s anger and wrath, and clothing you in the
righteousness of Christ.
Even now you stand before Him and live as He gives you to see and feel and taste His own
body and blood in the bread and wine. Taken in repentant faith that all He has done is “for you”,
you will be strengthened and preserved in body and soul unto life Everlasting. And you will be
restored in same body and soul to live as God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that you should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
“To take Jesus’ sacrifice seriously and completely, we first take God’s judgment fully
and completely, which He has done for us.”iv With Christ there is forgiveness THREFORE He is
feared (Ps. 130:4). God is a God of wrath and anger against sin, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures,
and painted on large canvases. But the person who fears the Lord clings to Him! And you know
Him best by those same Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, as the LORD, merciful and gracious, slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…to thousands of generations of those
who love Him and keep His commandments and you know him as He himself painted for all
nations to see, the clearest picture of eternal love- Jesus Christ, the crucified Savior. In His name.
Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus
until the Day of Everlasting life. Amen!
SDG!
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i
Fisk “Broken” Page 211
(Description From Wikipedia)
iii
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255983/How-I-God-peace-atheist-brother-PETER-HITCHENS-traces-journeyChristianity.html
iv
I can’t remember where this is from.. maybe an Issues ETC podcast?
ii