Day of Judgment

This question comes from someone outside our church but I thought it might be of interest to all.

Pastor Dave,

I've read and listen to your sermons and thoughts over the last few months and I have a question.  How come you never talk about Judgment Day when we come face to face with God?  Isn't that part of the Bible too?

Yes, it is.  And we have actually delved into it during Bible Studies on Revelation and occasionally as a side topic when studying other books.  But that's the key...you have to put those parts of scripture in context.  That's hard in a forum like this or even in a 12-15 minute sermon.  The problem with concepts like this not that they, themselves are un-scriptural.  Rather people lift them out in such a way that makes the discussion of them un-scriptural, poisoning what was meant to be good by turning it to their own ends.  This has been done so often with the Day of Judgment and other related topics that even mentioning them starts people thinking down paths that are wrong.  The conversation is diverted into yuck before we even start.  The only cure for this is to place the topic where it belongs, in the larger scope of scripture.  While we might mention Judgment Day less often than some churches do I guarantee you we've done more to study the Book of Revelation, and brought more real meaning out of it, than most churches do.

Also, everybody within the sound of my voice, memorize what I'm about to say.  Get your eyes ready.  Read it carefully.  Commit it to heart.

I DO TEACH YOU ABOUT THE DAY OF JUDGMENT WITH EVERY WORD I PREACH.

Are the capital letters enough?  Should I bold and italicize it too?

Understand that on the Day of Judgment you will not be judged on how perfect you are.  Nor will you be judged on whether you adopted the right moral code, had the right beliefs in your head, or went to church "x" number of times out of "y" Sundays in your life.  We all fail on all those accounts.  Nobody is sinless.  Nobody lives up to even the simplest, clearest moral code.  We can't understand it well enough even if it's the right one.  Using church attendance as a barometer of rightness is wrong in so many ways I don't even know how to begin.  It's the wrong verb ("attend"), it's self-serving and presumptuous for the church, it turns God into a bean-counter and salvation into a mathematical equation, it depends on Christ in name only...and that's just the start.

The only thing you will even have a prayer of lifting your head about on that Day of Judgment--THE ONLY THING--will be those times that you loved...no matter how humbly and poorly.  The only currency on that day that matters is LOVE:  God's love for you first, your love for those around you second.

If God does not love you and give you his grace and mercy on that day nothing else you have said, achieved, or believed will matter.

If God asks you a question on that day it will not be "How right were you?" or "How sinless were you?" or "Which church did you go to?"  If there's going to be any question it will be, "[Insert your own name here], did you love as I loved you?"

Now granted, we're going to fall short on that account, as nobody can love as selflessly as God did.  But at least we're playing the right game there, even if the score isn't high enough to win.  All of these other ideas about Judgment Day--basing it one something besides love--are like bringing a baseball bat to a chess match.  Even your best swing is just going to ruin things and hurt people.

Now stop and ask yourself...what do I preach about, talk about, urge you into, bring up in Bible Study, write music about, encourage the kids to do, etc, etc, etc.?  Service, forgiveness, attempting to understand each other, listening to and caring for the people around you all amount to one thing:  love.  I preach this gospel not because I'm all smarmy-lovey but because it's the one Jesus preached.  It's not that hard to understand.  If you just take care of the love part, everything else falls in line.  Loving is the right theology.  Loving is the heart of every moral code.  Loving and being loved should be the two most basic reasons we participate in church.

I would argue strongly that I am giving you the very heart of the matter that will be at stake on Judgment Day every time I open my mouth.  If there's a problem it's that we haven't let go of those bad old understandings of that event...that love doesn't sound important on the day it matters most...that we don't get that the love of Jesus for us and his sacrifice are the only things that give us any prayer of passing beyond that day into heaven.  We want to make even that Ultimate Day about us, about our power, about our achievements and goodness instead of about God and his love for us.  Ironically enough, that's the same sin we've committed from the very start (eating fruit = making everything about us).  We're determined that we will view everything through that lens right up to the very last day of existence, I guess.

I understand this impulse, but that doesn't make it right.  We should probably stop.  We need to stop thinking about the Judgement Day in ways that are going to get us in trouble on Judgment Day.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)