This Sunday is a calling to mind of the awesome second coming. Here we do not speak of the final coming παρουσία, but of the second, personal coming ἔρχομαι — the personal coming where Christ comes to each one of us, and we do not know when the appointment is, nor the place, and it is not necessarily after the repose. For example, He says in the Book of Revelation: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” (Rev. 2:5).
And what is stirring in the judgment is that Jesus sets out the method of judging in it, a method that is surprising and strange: the judgment is not over what man did of sins and transgressions, but over what he did not do of virtues. The Judge answers: “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” (Matt. 25:45).
We often suppose that the judgment is as though it holds us to account for breaking the Ten Commandments and committing sins such as adultery, theft, murder and the like. But the judgment shows us that such people have no place in the judgment. Saint John Chrysostom says: “He did not say to them: go to the fire because you committed adultery, or stole, or bore false witness, but because I was hungry and you did not feed Me.” Those who stood in the judgment are of two kinds: a kind that did not know of itself that it was serving Jesus, and a kind that did not serve Jesus in his brethren. Both kinds are considered righteous and good, but the second kind did not know where its sin was, and so the judgment was a revealing of the truth of its heart. As for the thieves, the murderers and the rapists, they are condemned before the judgment, and their deeds condemn them. In the third station, man calls the judgment to mind — a true calling to mind, and not by way of intellectual remembrance of what will happen, nor out of fear. For after we took the decision in the previous station to recover our personal dignity as children of God and to make the Father our reference, we must take a step toward realizing our decision, and the first work we do is to judge ourselves. Saint Macarius the Great says: “Judge yourself, my brother, before they judge you.” And he who is able to enter into his depths in truth and begin this inner journey is able after that to pass through all the challenges of the world and master it.
In the first Sunday we learned how to weigh ourselves and how to evaluate ourselves by standing before God; and in the second Sunday we learned to take a decision and confront ourselves, and to say: we have sinned. And today Jesus sets before us the criterion by which we must judge ourselves: What have I done to my brother? This is the question that fully qualifies us to receive forgiveness next Sunday, and without it we will remain prisoners of the Sunday of judgment even if we reach Pascha.
The stance today in the judgment is an embodiment of man’s realization of himself — that he has sinned toward Jesus — and so he judges himself according to the criterion that the Teacher set for us: “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Therefore our stance is that we ourselves call the judgment to mind in order to pass through it.
The fathers say that man must judge himself lest God judge him, that is, that the son confess his sins and bear their entire responsibility: I did it. It is striking that last Sunday, with the prodigal son, the father did not allow the son to complete his sentence, which he wished to say: “Make me like one of your hired servants.” (Luke 15:19). Rather, the dialogue proceeded as follows: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. And the father said to his servants: Bring out…” (Luke 15:21). God wants nothing from us except only the stance of bearing the responsibility of our sins alone; even He does not want compensation for what we have committed, nor a ransom for our sins — He wants this deep inner stance.
He who knew himself in the first Sunday, then took his decision to bear responsibility in the second Sunday, today takes an existential stance, where he judges himself and evaluates it according to the criterion of Jesus — this criterion which the Lord Himself set, and He does not mention any sin toward Himself; He did not say: you denied Me, nor: you reviled Me, but He focused on the deeds that man does with his brother, and on their basis we will receive the inheritance of God or His estrangement, that is, hell.
From the second side, it is not enough only to take a decision; we must also forget all the past sins that we committed through our judging of ourselves, lest they remain a wall between us and Jesus. That is, that we confess and cast our past into forgetfulness. And judgment means that man bears the responsibility of his sins on the one hand, and confesses saying: these sins were because of me and not because of the neighbor, and consequently this is the stance that will prepare us for next Sunday, so that I am reconciled with myself and accept its errors and sins; and from the second side, that I judge myself means that I subject it to myself.
And then the second presence of Christ becomes a presence to glorify us, so we hear His voice: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt. 25:34). This second presence is a presence now and here, and it is a personal presence; I do not know when Jesus comes to me, but we can discern the sign of Jesus’ presence when we acquire peace and inner joy in a way that cannot be expressed, and these experiences man acquires through his journey with Jesus.
The second stance that man takes to express the sincerity of his stance is when he changes his view of the other, so that I look upon every human being as though he were Jesus Himself: in the face of my brother I see Christ, as one of the hymns says, and that I direct an active love toward the neighbor, and I begin from this moment to bear responsibility — not as a sinner who has sinned, but as a son of God — that each one of us go out of himself and begin to look outward toward the other, and bear responsibility toward the other, and we become exactly like Jesus, who bore the responsibility of our sins as though He were the one who committed them. This stance today brings us to be deified after we have become children of God; then love will burst forth in our depths toward the other, as Jesus said: “”Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” (Matt. 25:40).
And this love is not only greetings and “welcome,” but a true work in society, each one of us according to his ability, as Father Schmemann says: “Every one of us is responsible for a small circle in the kingdom of God.” And this love is not for an unknown person or a passing poor man, but for every person whom God places in my path. For the journey that we will begin with Jesus is a journey in the faces of people, in our relationships with them, as the apostle says: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20).
And from today we must not occupy ourselves much with asking: have we changed? Have we become better? Have we become pleasing to Jesus? Man must strive with Jesus, for striving toward love with Him changes us on the way to Him and makes us more mature and closer to His stature, and man discovers all the expressions of divine love in this journey, which will be made manifest with the other; and the first work will be forgiveness next Sunday.