“LOVED BY THE SHEPHERD KING”
Saint Matthew 25. 31-46
2nd Last Sunday: 16 November Anno + Domini 2014
Fr Jay Watson SSP
In The Name + of Jesus
“Save me, O God” King David cried
out—and thus too it was written into the Psalter. In today’s appointed Gradual you heard it restated as your own cry of need—a Kyrie of sorts “Save me, O God.”
Good words to
keep on ones lips as the Parousia
approaches. “The day is surely drawing
near when God’s Son, the Anointed, shall with great majesty appear as Judge appointed.”
[TLH 611.1]
Christ does
not tell you when He will return
exactly but it will be soon and you are to be vigilant and ready. The throne He
will sit upon for the final judgment may be a throne such as Solomon had or
not. The “throne” which, like the “kingdom,”
is but an extension of the King. Your
King is not a tyrant or despot. Your King is not cruel or vindictive—save for
His righteous anger at sin, Satan, death, and Hell.
Your Judge is a Shepherd Who is good and loving. He is
like the perfect Father, Brother, and Groom because He is perfect. This judging
Herdsman is not dressed in a black robe but is wearing flesh and blood just
like you—save for its horribly awesome and beautiful wounds and scars (“crimson trophies won”) He wears no powdered wig but His sacred Head
now wounded retains the marks of His crown of thorns. And one wonders why the angels hide their
faces? Can one do anything but
genuflect?
The division
between the sheep and the goats is the final pronouncement of the celestial
courts verdict. Perfect good does perfect justice and judgment. Jesus sits in
calm repose and majesty because His being extended, lifted up on high with
pierced hands thrust out, has been already accomplished: “it is finished!” He will
sit as comfortably on His throne as He does on this altar, as He did in the
homely and friendly house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
The fear and
apprehension is to be meditated upon not then, not at the Eschaton, but now in the struggle of the Church Militant, under the
cross. You are slain in the spirit—the “old
Adam” NOW in the daily drowning of sin. You sing these weighty hymns now
not at the final trump.
You do not do The King’s Law. You are a scofflaw,
a brigand, and bandit. You are a wolfshead, a murdering, thieving,
back-stabbing, fornicating, lustful, and covetous traitor to your King—Who is
your Father! Repent.
Every year
this text is preached and the same questions arise. You ask the same things that
the sheep ask the Lord. What is the answer? What is the answer to every question but
Christ Himself.
Yes you are
to feed the hungry and you don’t do it. You give to your loved ones and
sometimes you give to the real needy—but only if they pass some ‘worthiness’ litmus test your warped
self-righteousness constructs. You don’t take in the stranger because more than
anything else you don’t like the stranger. You don’t clothe the naked who need
clothes and far more importantly you don’t clothe the brokenhearted and lonely
with the warmth of forgiveness and family inclusion. You don’t keep the Second
Table of the Law and for that you should be damned. You should hear the words “depart from me.” You should be cursed
into everlasting fire. But you are not. The fire is quenched, like the fiery
darts of the old evil flow. The burning of Hades is extinguished in the Water
of Life Jesus. The flames and heat are doused by the Water and Blood flowing
from His Body—His riven side. The inferno is flooded away in the Holy Water +
of Baptismal regeneration. The heart-burn, the soul-burn, and the fear-burn are
calmed in the Blood of His Holy Chalice—the tears He shed over you and then the
joyful tears of life He pours into you: Peace.
So yes, you
are to love your neighbor as yourself and you are to strive to live both a holy
life and a fruitful life of giving and sharing. You are also to love the King
perfectly—the First Table of the 10 Commands.
But you are
as clueless and oblivious as were the Sheep when they asked The Lord “when saw we Thee…?”
The facile
and incorrect answer is mis-found in worried and self-absorbed scurrying of
business and methodistic check-lists. The way of righteousness is apprehended,
received, only in The Righteous One.
Jesus kept
all the Law and by being chosen and adopted by Him, by being placed into His
wounds, His side, His Body, and His Church, you have all that He did and is! Jesus loved the World and died for the world. Jesus gave meat to the hungry and drink to the
thirsty. Jesus placed raiment on the naked and visited the diseased and
imprisoned.
Believe in
Him and His merits are yours. You are royal priests and blessed by The Father
because He has made His Father your Father. This kingdom, this King is yours
because you are predestinated for it, for Him, “from the foundation of the world.”
With your
trespasses atoned for, with your failures washed away by He Who was the “least of these” you are placed on His
right hand. With Jesus, “for you” becoming Himself hungry,
thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick with your sins unto suffering and death, and
imprisoned in the tomb of death, you are touched + and fed by His own right
hand.
Your names +
are written in the Book of Life, His Body, in His Blood. “Come ye, blessed…inherit the
King.”
In The Name of The Father
and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost
No comments:
Post a Comment