In the sermon last week, we were reminded that in the early Christian centuries, Advent had four themes – Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. Nowadays other themes are emphasised, including Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. So today, the Second Sunday in Advent, can be thought of as about Judgement but also as about Peace. Our readings reflect those themes – Isaiah speaks of judgement and of the peaceable kingdom it will make possible. In our Gospel, John the Baptist comes across as a very judgemental person. He doesn’t mince his words. The Pharisees and Sadducees who have come to be baptized by him, presumably because they feel the need to repent, are addressed as:
“You brood of vipers!”
So what’s the link between Justice and Peace?
On Friday morning, the Psalm at Morning Prayer using the 2006 version was Psalm 94, which begins with a passionate plea for justice.
O Lord God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, show yourself.
Rise up, O Judge of the world;
give the arrogant their just deserts.
How long shall the wicked, O Lord,
how long shall the wicked triumph?
Victims of crime have a natural longing to see justice done and the pain of those to whom justice has been denied or for whom justice has been delayed is very real – think, for instance, about the Hillsborough families whose yearning for justice was once again in the news last week. For them, peace of mind will only come if justice is done.
That said, I think that there’s a danger that when we think about divine judgement, we project onto God our human inclination to think of judgement only or mainly in terms of punishment and revenge. Today’s Gospel challenges us to think about the nature of judgement, about the divine judgement we shall all face, and about what sorts of judgement are compatible with Christian discipleship.
“You brood of vipers!”
On the face of it, John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees sound like the kind of abuse that is all too common on social media. Dig a little deeper into what it would have meant to that group of religious leaders, and the shock value increases. John’s hearers would have been familiar with the way in which, when farmers burned back the stubble after harvesting their crops, snakes would emerge from hiding, escaping the flames. John invokes this in the final metaphor in today’s reading:
“…he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
The point that John is making so forcefully and emphatically is that his hearers will be judged not on whether they have been baptized, but on whether that has changed their behaviour.
“Bear fruit…” he tells them “…in keeping with repentance.”
When John said. “…he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
The “he” to whom he is referring is Jesus. Yet, as next Sunday’s Gospel will remind us, John the Baptist came to question whether Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus was hanging out with sinners, offering them love, acceptance and forgiveness. Remember Matthew the tax collector, the woman taken in adultery and the penitent thief hanging next to him on a cross.
Any doctrine of divine judgement whose purpose is to frighten people into good behaviour by threatening them with punishment needs to be challenged because that was not what Jesus taught and not how he lived. He was sometimes every bit as trenchant in his criticism of powerful people as John the Baptist, but he didn’t confront individuals by saying sternly: “If you don’t mend your ways, you will end up in Hell”. Instead, he behaved to them in a way that, while challenging, was also loving, accepting and forgiving. It was that experience of the love and the grace of God which transformed the lives of some of the people whom he encountered. That’s both a guide to us about the kind of judgement we should, as Christians, refrain from and the kind of divine judgement we will eventually face.
I think the example of Jesus makes clear that Christians should refrain from the kind of judgement that has become known as cancel culture, the contemporary tendency to demonise people whose views on a given issue are seen as offensive. The Pharisees, those stern defenders of purity laws, had a very similar mentality and they sought to cancel Jesus.
One problem with cancel culture is that it values ideological purity at the expense of grace and forgiveness. Another problem is that it assumes that the cancelled person is entirely vicious. This runs counter to the Christian insight that we are all flawed and in need of forgiveness, whatever our values or our social and political beliefs.
The divine judgement on which we reflect in Advent isn’t about condemnation. At the end of today’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah writes concerning the Messiah that
“all nations shall inquire of him”
That’s very striking. Not “All nations will obey him”, nor “all nations will worship him” but “All nations will inquire of him” – the Messiah Jesus as the person in whom answers can be found.
God’s answers to our questions about what divine judgement is like are to be found in those stories of forgiveness in the Gospels. God seeks lovingly to transform us. That won’t be a painless or an easy process but it offers the possibility of that true and lasting peace which can come, as Isaiah tell us, if we are full of the knowledge of the Lord because we have encountered God face to face, accepted God’s judgement, love and forgiveness and been reconciled with those whom we have wronged. Now that’s something to anticipate in this season of anticipation.