While preparing a Maundy Thursday sermon on Jesus washing
the disciples’ feet in John 13, I had an inkling to start writing about what I
think the final judgment will be like—a topic that has all but consumed much of
North American Christianity (no pun intended). But first I have to justify why I feel bold enough to
venture such a speculation.
Especially because, no doubt, the judgment obsessed will find my depiction of the last judgment to be too namby-pamby for their tastes, and will start checking the skies for lightning bolts to see where I am located. No worries. Personally, I find my depiction far more terrifying than the tired old fire and sulfur that they dream up. And I’ll just respond that, if I’m wrong, and this is too namby-pamby, I’ll face the music when I get there. I’m just not too worried about that. Because, rather than freely speculate, I’ve always looked to Jesus of Nazareth—Jesus the outcast-embracer, Jesus the leper-healer, Jesus the sinner-befriender, Jesus the cross die-er— to figure out what God is like, I’ve just never really been afraid of what he’ll do to me if I’m wrong about stuff like this.
In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say that it’s kind of a
catch-22 from God’s end, as well, not because anyone “has anything on” God but
because of what he sort of brought on himself by so consistently relating to us as he has. If “Bible believing” Christians
are again listening for thunder, at this point, I’ll just gently remind them
that biblical characters from Moses to the psalmists be playin’ this card all
the time, appealing to God’s mercy and reminding God of his own reputation and
standards so as to avoid the lightning bolt. For example, in Psalm 6:1-5 the
writer pleads to God “Don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your
wrath,” reminding him that he is also a God of “steadfast love” even suggesting
that it’s not in God’s best interest to strike him down, anyway, because “in
death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?”
Another instance, when God has finally had it with the Israelites in the desert
(Numbers 14) and is ready to “strike them with pestilence an disinherit them” (v.
12), Moses intercedes for the people by reciting a standard litany about who God
is (v. 18), then specifically reminds God to “forgive the iniquity of this
people according to the greatness of your steadfast love” (notice that in v. 19
he slyly leaves out the part about God also being a God of justice who “by no
means clears the guilty”). This is transparently manipulative behavior by a
child who is trying to wiggle out of punishment because he ultimately believes
that his parent’s mercy will overrule his parent’s sense of justice. What’s
really remarkable, is that he’s right (vv. 20-24). In kind of the opposite way,
Jonah tellingly recognizes that God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah
4:2) but says this with regret, wishing that it were not so because of the
wrath and hellfire he wants God to rain down on the heathen Ninevites.
See, if I’m being completely blasphemous here, then of
course God is free to do with me whatever God wills…kind of. The conflict is
that God can only strike me down in an outburst of violence at the expense of
his entire reputation that he worked and suffered so much to cultivate here on
Earth. God can only strike me down for not praising or worshipping properly at
the expense of what makes God so worship-able and praiseworthy in the first
place (alright, now I’m checking the skies, but I persist nonetheless),
unfathomable forbearance and mercy. A god who strikes down dissidents left and
right is certainly fear-able and obey-able but can never be loveable—love being
the one thing God wants from us more than anything else (Matthew 22:36-39).
In the absence of love, there would be nothing stopping God
from sending a lightning bolt right through my presumptuous mouth right now, as
we speak. In that sense, God is completely free. The problem, though, is that love
forces us to suffer each other and put up with each other in a way that wouldn’t
be necessary were we only trying to fulfill a loveless legal standard. Over time,
we even begin to trust that those who love us aren’t simply doing it on a whim
in those moments when we please them, but rather, their love comes from some
place deeper and more sustaining, perhaps even a place tangled up in their
character and integrity.
Imagine, if my own mother and father who have consistently
loved and nurtured and supported me for 27 years, making huge personal
sacrifices to do it, suddenly turned an about-face one day, in full possession
of their faculties mind you, and said, “We’ve decided we hate you because you’re
a loser. We wish you had never been born. And we’d much prefer to have you
shipped off and tortured somewhere else than have to look at your ugly face
anymore.” Now take that event, increase its unexpectedness to the nth degree,
and I think you have a close approximation to what much of North American
Christianity supposes God will be like on the last day. Never mind Jesus who
said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) and “I do not judge
anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the
world, but to save the world” (John 13:47); never mind that our only model for
God is someone who would rather die himself than easily call down 12 legions of
angels to slay his enemies (Mt. 26:53); never mind that God gets up super
early, before most Starbucks are even open yet (I used to be a barista—trust,
it’s ridiculously early), to again lift the sun up into the sky and rain waters
from the heavens so that plants can spread and blossom and animals can bask in
its glow (see Psalm 104); never mind that when our lungs are able to inhale,
God has consistently breathed the breath of life into them (see Genesis 2:7);
it seems that many are still dead set and even lustful after the idea that God
will be ready for some bloodshed when all is said and done.
But assuming it’s better for Christians to look to Jesus,
and not to their own harshest neuroses and projected insecurities, when
speculating about the world’s future, here’s how I’m envisioning the final
judgment, so help me God.
I’ll be sitting in a chair, plush but a little too big for
me, before an even grander throne. One glance at that glorious face, and I’ll
instantly know beyond any doubt that I’m a worm. Illuminated by God’s full, uncontained
light, my eyes will wonder down to the floor, then to my feet, then my hands. I’ll
see in the starkest contrast the reality of my life, which was always there but
to which I was always able to mentally fortify myself before. Aside from the more obvious sins that I already recognized as sins, I’ll see with
crystal clarity that my relationship to God’s creation was basically parasitic,
that what I considered my greatest acts of kindness and charity really amounted
to so much ego scratching, that the
relationships which I called loving were essentially self-serving.
And the Glory of all glories, the Lord of all lords, at
whose beckoning stars burst and heavens crumble, will slowly stroll over to me
and look me straight in the eye. I’ll want to look away from the white-hot glow
of that face, but somehow I won’t be able. Seeing that the verdict is
approaching, I’ll hear my dry mouth shout, “Please! Send me to the fire-y
furnace. I’ll breathe sulfur! I’ll shovel granite! I swear! It’s all I’m worth!
Just please don’t make me gaze on your glory any longer!”
But not uttering a single word, the alpha and omega, the
Lord of hosts, the maker of all that is seen and unseen, will wrap a towel
around his waist, kneel down, and wash the feet of this self-serving, parasitic,
knave. And I’ll have to watch him do it. And I’ll have to deal with the terror
and the pain of knowing that all along it should’ve been me washing his.
