Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46; Psalm 94:1-7; Luke 1:51-52; Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 3:10-12; Romans 3:23; Matthew 7:1-2; James 2:13; John 21:15-17; Hebrews 13:16 Series: 2022
Part of a series on the Apostles’ Creed, this Advent sermon unpacks ‘He will come to judge the living and the dead.’ Opening with a wordplay on anesthesia as the absence of judgment, the preacher holds together salvation by grace with the reality of judgment by laying out the four Wesleyan graces (prevenient, justifying, sanctifying) and redefining sin as acting against God’s will rather than violating discrete rule-lists. Drawing on Psalm 94, Mary’s Magnificat, the Shema and Leviticus, he argues that Christ’s judgment will look like Matthew 25’s sheep and goats, not Paul’s sin lists, condemning the church’s idolatrous focus on dress and origins over feeding the hungry. The call is to leave judgment to Christ, hold one another accountable in love, and stay awake this Advent by feeding Christ’s sheep in concrete ways.’
Illustrations: anesthesia-judgment-etymology, get-out-of-jail-free-card, holy-spirit-not-a-vampire, salvation-card-in-wallet
December 18
He will come to judge the living and the dead
Lord, avenging God— avenging God, show yourself! Rise up, judge of the earth! Pay back the arrogant exactly what they deserve! - Psalm 94:1-2
I’ve had general anesthesia twice in my life. The first time was when I had my wisdom teeth removed and the second time was when I had a tumor removed from my ankle. I don’t remember falling asleep.
I didn’t have great judgment. Aesthesia or aesthetics means means judgment and Greek and anesthesia means an absence of judgment, lack of judgment. Anesthesia is the procedure that takes away our judgment. So we can’t tell that something hurts or it doesn’t hurt. That’s the great trick of it. So aesthetics is the like the study of the beautiful: what you like and you don’t like. It’s one thing to judge whether a painting is beautiful. Another thing to judge whether you feel the pain from a surgeon cutting up your body and another thing to judge the eternal soul of other people. All these fall under the language of judgment and in the apostles creed. After Christ ascends and sits by the heavenly Father, we proclaim that he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the apostles creed, that historic doctrinal statement of the faith. We are going to look at how the creed encapsulate scripture and offers it to us in a way that shows us what has been revealed from God about who God is, how the world is, why we are in need, how Jesus saves us, and what we should do about it.
Today, he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Judgment is not something that people seek a lot. Unless they have a grievance and they’re very litigious, then you’re looking for a judgment. I don’t know of a single situation where the word judgmental has a positive connotation. It is a pejorative word. We claim, as the Creed says, that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead. We also claim that we’re saved by grace, not by works. How do we hold these together? Judgment is a major part of the Bible. The coming of Christ in judgment is a major theme of Advent. As Richard red earlier.
Lord, avenging God— avenging God, show yourself! Rise up, judge of the earth! Pay back the arrogant exactly what they deserve! - Psalm 94:1-7
Mary also calls on the judgment of Lord in Luke 1
He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.
The injustice of our world is not eternal. Judgment is the Lord’s, though, not ours. It doesn’t matter whether we are on anethesthesia or not. The pain and misery caused by people on this earth will be judged, but not by us. A good judge who sees the hearts and understands us.
The second meaning of advent, the coming again of Jesus, is to conclude this judgment. It has been presented in many different ways over the years. Some have elaborate systems of how it is going to happen with predictions of the end times, et cetera.
I think that many of these are a misreading of scripture, ignoring when Jesus says, you will not know the time or the hour. In the mean time, we need to stay awake for judgment. And yet, if we’re already saved, what do we have to worry about?
Sometimes the Christian faith is presented as this kind of hellish get out of jail free card. So you say the sinner’s prayer and suddenly you’re no longer going to hell. You’re in the clear. Good job by you. But this is not a biblical account of salvation.
You can pick and choose scriptures to get to this kind of view, but salvation is a lot more holistic than just the avoidance of hell. Salvation is a life healed and sanctified, ready to spend eternity with the God who is love.
In order to bridge the gap between salvation and judgment, we need a better understanding of grace. There are four different types of grace or different ways we talk about grace. The first is prevenient grace: the grace that comes before. The grace that is present before we are aware of God. The Holy Spirit isn’t just waiting around for us to say some words and then it will enter us. The Holy Spirit is not like a vampire that has to be welcomed into our house. The Holy Spirit is already there. If we at all call for God, it’s already and only because of God’s prior presence and movement in us. There aren’t spirits dancing around waiting for us to say the magic words so that they can enter and start working on us. The Holy Spirit is already working on us. Next, there’s justifying grace, the grace that takes away our sins, that makes us upright. The grace that takes us from being curved inward towards ourselves to standing upright and being able to see as God sees and love as God loves. This is the grace of the conversion experience, the grace of the mountain top, but God isn’t through with us. Our life doesn’t end upon conversion. Upon accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. No. If that’s was all there was, gosh, this would be a mediocre faith. The next grace is sanctifying grace which changes us continually to become who we were created to be. It is the most amazing thing. We are cleansed by grace so that the not loves of our life are no longer present. Through grace, Christ chooses us and then offers us a chance to respond. How we how we respond is where the stakes come in. It is also where the judgment comes in and this is where we can talk about sin.
Sin is missing the mark of a God has offered for us. But there are a number of ways of conceptualizing and thinking about sin. If we did a poll of sins five sins that everybody thought of, there might be a lot of overlap. There probably is gonna be a number of people who have slightly different definitions of sin, but I bet there’d be a lot of overlap. The way sin is often taught in churches though is different from how it’s offered in scripture. What’s often taught is a set of rules to either follow or not follow. It’s kind of extrapolated from the 10 commandments. Do this, don’t do that. The 10 commandments aren’t really a super important thing to Jesus. They aren’t separate from the rest of the law for him. To Jesus, it’s all the law, or the way or path to follow God of which not one letter is to be removed. It is, instead, summed up with two verses from the Torah. The first, the Shema from Deuteronomy. “listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength.” And the second from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Later Christians made sin lists of sorts but Jesus does not. Sin is acting against the will of God. In our hearts or in our lives. It doesn’t replace the Law but goes deeper. Adultery to Jesus is not just the discreet act of unfaithfulness but the lust in our hearts. Murder is not just the act of killing but hatred in our hearts. The sabbath, as well, is for God and for the things of God and so is not for refraining for loving solely for explicit rule following.
The Christ of judgment is not about looking at a set of discrete rules and seeing whether or not we followed them. And thanks be to God it isn’t because if it were, we would all fall short. This is why Paul quotes the psalm when he says no one is holy. No, not one. No one does good. No, not one. There is no pure position on which to stand. This doesn’t relativize sin. Sin is a greater problem than any list of sins could ever address. I think we should speak of sin and holiness and seek holiness and righteousness, fully hold each other accountable to sin as a community, lift up and speak, but we should also hold it under the guidance of what Jesus actually commands of us to do in the best approximation of judgment. Christ’s judgment is not going to take place as one of the sin lists in Paul or in Peter. It will be like Matthew 25,
“Now when the Son of Man comes in his majesty and all his angels are with him, he will sit on his majestic throne. All the nations will be gathered in front of him. He will separate them from each other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right side. But the goats he will put on his left.
This is it. This is judgment. Are you ready for this judgment?
“Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’ “Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ “Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’
The story doesn’t end there. It oftentimes does when preaching. It’s the more comfortable ending. It’s not comfortable talking about the goats, but Jesus talks about the goats. Jesus talks about uncomfortable things and then there’s the goats. They’re not entering his presence of God. And they ask why. It’s like because I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was thirsty and you did not give me a drink. I was naked and you did not close me. I was homeless and you did not house me. When you do not do it unto the least of these, you do not do it to me.
When we are so focused on sin as discrete moral actions, we are creating an idol. We are lifting up an idol because we are from totally following God’s will and giving ourselves a false grace instead of the true grave that only comes from the Father. We are idolators and my friends, the church has been guilty of idolatry over and over again. When the church is more concerned about what people wear than whether the hungry are fed, we are being idolatrous. When we are more concerned about where people come from than about who Is naked and hurting, we are being idolatrous and we are opening ourselves up for judgment. There are stakes involved here. As James says, “There will be no mercy in judgment for anyone who hasn’t shown mercy.” I think we are all guilty of sin and all in need of repentance.
This doesn’t mean anything goes or it doesn’t matter what you do. By no means. Sin is inescapable apart from grace. As Paul says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There is not a pure position from which any of us are equipped to cast judgment on others. This is why Jesus says, “judge not lest ye be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you receive.” Realizing that there are stakes involved in how we respond to God’s call on our life. The judgment of Jesus Christ is not about looking at a card in our wallet to say whether or not we’ve said a prayer or we’ve done a thing. We need not fear judgment, but we should not take it lightly as if our own actions are meaningless. Is your faith in your own judgment or in God’s? Are you seeking to satisfy yourself or God?
Do you love me? Jesus says to his disciples before he dies? Yes Lord, of course we love you,. “Then feed my sheep.”
In this season of advent, as we prepare for the first coming and the second one, may we stay awake and seek ways of feeding Christ’s sheep here and now. We wait by faith, by believing more in God than in ourselves and our own judgment. By loving more our neighbors near and far in concrete ways. By committing ourselves. By sharing good news of Christ’s love in the face of the darkness of this world. By giving of ourselves and our resources. By praying when it is not convenient.
May the church be a place that sacrificially offers ourselves to others. As Hebrews says, “Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have because God is please with these kinds of sacrifices.”1 May we leave judgment for Christ and then may we hold each other accountable for love beyond what is comfortable, which we can only do through grace. When we see each other erring, may we hold each other accountable. May we receive holy rebuke and strive further to follow God.
It’s not about earning salvation. It’s about responding and living into the salvation offered this day, afresh and anew, to each of us. Repent. Your life can turn around. God is coming to be with us.
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we await your coming with hopeful anticipation. Help us to be a people who believe more in you than in ourselves or what the world tells us to do. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Footnotes
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Hebrews 13:16 ↩