SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING

THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Sunday for everyone. 

There is a passage in the gospel that even those who never go to church know well; it concerns the universal judgment that separates the sheep from the goats. In this passage, Jesus, the Judge, speaks a terrible phrase: “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”These dramatic words have inspired artists to paint scenes of terror, despair, and torment. They have also suggested lyrical compositions such as ‘Dies Irae.’ 

We recall the first stanza: “Day of wrath and doom impending. Heaven and earth in ashes ending. Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth, When from heaven the Judge descendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth.” 

Will the encounter with the Lord be like this? It will be a terrible day! These words also inspired musicians who translated the anguish of the crucial moment when Christ pronounced the final sentence into music. Frankly, it’s hard to recognize the Jesus of the Gospel in this judge, at least as this page has traditionally been read. 

From this Gospel account, God’s judgment has been preached, and it comes across as a dramatic showdown to account for. Thus, the encounter with the Lord, far from being desired and expected, represents a great unknown for all, including the good ones, because you never know how to feel safe before whom, as the book of Job says, he discovers defects even in his angels. 

This is why many Christians, even good ones, would have willingly signed up for a few years in purgatory. A God who condemns this way is deeply embarrassing for a Christian. It is difficult to consider this justice as part of the Good News of the Gospel. 

How do you agree with the heavenly Father whom Jesus spoke of, the God who makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust and asks his sons and daughters to do likewise, loving the righteous and the sinners without distinction? Why, at a particular moment, does he make the separation he asks us not to make? Faced with these questions, and there would be many others, we must ask ourselves whether we are sure we understand what Jesus wants to teach us in this famous text. 

Entire generations of Christians have grown up in fear, and many have turned away from the faith precisely because they could not believe in this God. So we wonder whether we have not misrepresented the meaning of the Master’s words. Let us approach the Gospel text with great loyalty and not take for granted that the form in which it has been interpreted and used is correct. 

Let’s focus on the first scene: 

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, with all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was ill, and you cared for me; I was in prison, and you visited me.’

What have we heard? I think many will respond: The beginning of a parable. It is not a parable but rather a judgment scene in another literary genre. The narration is inspired by events in the courts of the great kings of the ancient Middle East; they often summoned their feudal lords to assess their conduct. They were rewarded if they were faithful; if they committed misdeeds, they were severely punished. A judgment scene is a literary form that rabbis have often used; we find it, for example, in the Talmud, where it is said that the Lord in the afterlife will evaluate the lives of the Israelites. The Talmud says that the Lord will undoubtedly sit down and take a scroll of the Torah, put it on His knees, and then tell them: Those who have behaved according to the law, come, and they will receive their reward. This is how the lives of the Israelites will be evaluated: based on fidelity to the Torah. 

We find a judgment scene represented in Egypt, painted on sarcophagi, on graves, or illustrated in the Book of the Dead. We see the deceased, accompanied by nubiles, before Osiris because his life must be evaluated… how? On the scale. The deceased’s heart was placed on a balance plate; it is the heart from which all your choices started, and on the other plate of the scale was placed the feather, a symbol of the goddess Maat, the goddess of wisdom. If the heart was in tune with wisdom, he was rewarded; he entered the kingdom of the blessed. 

We find this literary genre in the judgment scene in the famous chapter 7 of Daniel, where the Lord, the Elder, sits on the throne and pronounces his judgment. After the kingdoms of beasts appear, he pronounces his sentence. From the clouds of heaven comes the Son of Man, who gives the kingdom to this Son of Man. After all the bestial realms, now, finally, a human realm begins. The scene is significant because it closely resembles our text. The great sovereign, the Ancient One, sits on the throne; around him are myriads of angels who act as bodyguards; it is a scene similar to that of the eastern courts and to our text. 

We have seen that the Son of Man entered the scene in his glory, which is the enthronement of this judge; some angels are the assistants … And we ask ourselves, first of all: Who is this Son of Man? We rarely hear of Jesus as the Son of Man, yet it is a very important title because the judge of our life will be the Son of Man. We find this title, ‘Son of Man,’ mentioned 77 times in the Gospels. And, practically, it is always in the mouth of Jesus, who presents himself as “Son of Man.” What does it mean? In Hebrew, ‘son of man’ simply means ‘man.’ 

In Jesus, ‘Son of Man’ signifies the man par excellence, who has achieved the fullness of humanity. In Jesus, God has shown the full dignity of the deified man. Therefore, either you resemble him, or you are not a man. He is the real man, the successful man. Let us understand how this successful man, Jesus of Nazareth, pronounces his judgment. First of all, we must clearly clarify which throne he sits on. 

We immediately imagine the scene of the oriental courts, where the great sovereign appears in the splendor of his power. Let’s clarify which throne Jesus pronounces his sentence from in his glory. When has his glory been fully manifested? What throne was he sitting on when he finally fully revealed his entire identity, when he showed his glorious face? 

Here’s the misunderstanding that led to the misinterpretation of this Gospel passage. It all started with the wrong image of the throne he was sitting on. It would have been enough to read the verse that follows our text, where the Son of Man appeared in the splendor of his glory. Immediately after, in the next verse, he says: “When he finished this discourse, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You know that in two days Easter will be celebrated, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’” 

The Son of Man shows them on which throne he will be raised, because it is on that throne that he will reveal his full glory. The throne is the cross; the glorious face of the Son of Man appears in fullness: the successful man who gave his whole life for love. Judgment will occur before this man because he is the true man who embodies human perfection. Jesus of Nazareth is the one who has made his life a gift of love. 

In front of this man, at the end of our lives, we will all have to introduce ourselves; we will have to present our lives given, and on this man we will be evaluated to see whether we have succeeded or whether our lives have been a failure. And in front of this man, there will be a separation: the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. The image is inspired by the practice of shepherds who separated the sheep from the goats in the evening… For what reason? Because goats lack wool and need protection, while sheep can stay out in the open. Let us note well that sheep and goats stay together throughout the day in the same flock, and at night comes the separation. 

It is the same image we find in the parables of Jesus, where the grain grows with the weeds; good fish and bad fish are in the same net; the wise and the foolish virgins… Bear in mind that the same thing happens here. We will clarify this later, but sheep and goats stay together. In the end, there is a separation. 

Let’s start asking ourselves: Are sheep just sheep, or are you also a goat at some point in your life? Are goats just goats, or are there times in your life when you have been a sheep? How will the separation happen if, at certain times, the lamb is present in each person and the goat is present at other times? If people were divided into two very different groups, it would be easy to separate them, but it is like wheat and weeds; both sheep and goats are present in each person. Then we will see how the trial is carried out.

 And we also ask ourselves: Why did Jesus choose the image of the sheep and the goats? Maybe we think it’s because sheep are good and goats are bad. It’s not! It’s just a matter of color. A famous book from the time of Jesus, the first book of Enoch, presents, on some pages, the image of men as beasts and animals, and also the image of men like lambs or goats. It clearly says that sheep are white by color, and the goats are dark, black—symbols of light: lambs, and of darkness: goats. The lamb is the one who lets through the light that makes him like the triumphant Son of Man. The goat represents darkness; there is no light, and the light that makes him resemble the Son of Man does not come out of him. 

What aspect of us reveals the human in us and thereby our resemblance to the Son of Man, the real man? The narrative makes this very clear. If you have practiced the following six works of love, you will be like the Son of Man, the successful man. They are: giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, assisting the sick, and visiting those in jail. After the Son of Man pronounced this sentence, we would have expected leaps of joy, songs, and dances from those on the right. Instead, the lambs make a strange objection and ask: When have we done all these things? 

It is a literary device. Why is it introduced? To make us listen to the six works of mercy again, so they will be well engraved in our minds, because that’s where our life is headed. If we practice them, we are people; if we neglect them, we are not. Let’s listen:

 Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of my brothers, you did for me.’

Maybe we got a little bored listening to the list of the six works of mercy the second time, but let’s get ready: Jesus will let us hear this list two more times because it is central to the message he wants to instill and to teach us how to become authentic people, loving and attentive to the needs of the brother and sister. Jesus did not invent this list of people to help; it was already known throughout the ancient Middle East. 

We find it in the Bible, in the book of Job; we find it especially in chapter 58 of Isaiah, where the fast that pleases God is presented: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, share bread … is the same list of works of love. 

We also find it outside of Israel. What is written in chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead is famous. In Egypt, it was a text placed next to the deceased in the second millennium to accompany him on the arduous journey to eternity, to the realm of the dead. This book was a collection of religious magic formulas that the deceased had to recite throughout this journey. It says what he will have to say when he is in front of Osiris: ‘I did what makes rejoice the gods: I gave bread to the hungry, I gave water to the thirsty, I clothed those who were naked, I offered a passage to those who did not have a boat; I did what men notice and what pleases the gods.’ This is what the deceased had to say in front of Osiris; exactly our list; this list of good works was very extensive. 

There is, however, one detail that appears only in the mouth of Jesus. The request to visit the prisoners appears on no other list; Jesus recommends paying attention to these people. The prisoners aroused no mercy; they had lost honor, dignity, and affection; they were abandoned by all because, unlike the others in need, the hungry, the thirsty, and the sick, the prisoners are responsible for their miserable condition; they went looking for misfortune. The list that Jesus made known to all is very significant. We will understand later why he included the visit to the prisoners. 

Now, we can define the purpose of this literary genre. It is an urgent invitation to take life seriously and teaches us how to live if we want to be a person. For example, I want to read you a famous scene of rabbinical judgment. It is the midrash on Psalm 118, and in this text we will find an impressive analogy to the narration we have heard from the mouth of Jesus. He says: ‘In the future world, whoever is judged will be asked what their works have been. If you answer: I have given food to the hungry, you will be told: This is the door of the Lord; enter through it. If he answers that he has given drink to the thirsty, he will be told: This is the Lord’s door; enter through it. If he answers that he clothed the naked, he will be told: This is the Lord’s door; enter through it. The same will happen with those who raised orphans, those who gave alms, and anyone who has done works of love.’ In referring to this dialogue, the rabbis did not intend to reveal the words God would have spoken at the end of the world. 

They wanted to instill the values on which to focus life in this world. And now comes the sentence of condemnation for those on the left, the goats; it is the condemnation of the darkness, of the inhuman, present in us when we do not resemble Jesus of Nazareth, when we do not love as he loved. We are in the dark. Let’s listen to the sentence: 

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; a stranger, and you gave me no welcome; naked, and you gave me no clothing; ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 

The rabbis repeated their teachings twice to impress them more firmly on the disciples’ minds. Sometimes they simply repeated them in different words. This we call ‘Synonymic parallelism’. Other times, however, they presented their message negatively, as in our Gospel passage today. Jesus has already used this way of communicating the message, for example, when he talks about the house built on the rock that does not collapse, even when the rivers come. Then he says, “If you build a house in the sand…” This second part doesn’t add anything new to the message; it just makes it stand out better. 

What does Jesus want to highlight by negatively proposing what he has said? He has made us listen, for the third time, to the list of works of love and to what happens to those who do not practice them, to those who behave like a goat, and to those who do not care for the needy. It does not look like the Lamb, the Son of man; it has nothing to do with who he has made his life a gift of love; it is not a person. This condition is expressed by saying that he is accursed. 

In the Bible, cursing means declaring oneself far from life, having chosen death. But let us note that it is not the Father who curses. Earlier, Jesus said: “Come, blessed of my Father.” But when referring to the “accursed,” it is not said that the Father curses. NO. These people who do not practice works of love curse themselves; they have distanced themselves from the successful man. And what is their destiny? The eternal fire is prepared for the devil and his angels. 

Here, we face a threat and good news: the gospel. Let’s begin by clarifying the terrifying images Jesus used. He did not invent them; they were used by all the preachers of the time. Apocalyptic literature is full of these images, and remember that they are images, not information. Let’s not confuse the content, which is the message, with the cover surrounding it, which is the images. 

Where are these images abundantly found? In a famous book from the time of Jesus, the first book of Enoch, writing had already begun two centuries earlier. It speaks of the wicked being thrown into hell, into a deep valley that is a great, perpetual oven. The book says that the fire was prepared for Azazel, the leader of the demons and the army of all evil angels. This reflects the belief that God had his good angels, but Azazel also had his army. 

In the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, the good angels, God’s army, do not remain idle. In the book of Enoch, it is said that these angels prepare chains to bind Satan. Then there are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, who chain the allied spirits of Satan and throw them into the fiery furnace. How was this image of the perpetual fire of the valley of Gehenna born? 

Let us bear in mind that Jesus speaks precisely of hell with this image, which he took from the book of Enoch and which was common among preachers. Jesus never talks about hell; in the Gospels, this term does not appear. The Gospel mentions this cursed valley south of Jerusalem, at the confluence with the Kidron Valley. You see it behind me; that’s the cursed place. You can see the convent of Saint Onofrius, the ‘Tophet,’ the cursed place where human sacrifices were offered to the god Molech; therefore, it was cursed by the prophets. There was also the city’s garbage dump; a perpetual nauseating fire burned because all the waste arrived there; and there were also the tombs, so it was an impure place. In those caves, even the lepers took refuge. And precisely there, where the convent of Saint Onofrius is located, Judas hanged himself. 

This valley is where those who make a mistake are thrown, and they are tormented by fire. Opinions differed on the duration of these torments. In the Persian religion, the wicked were simply consumed by fire. By contrast, the punitive aspect was typical of the Jews’ apocalyptic narratives. But how long did this punishment last? Rabbi Iba, the great one, said it lasted 12 months. Instead, Rabbi Johanan Benhur said it lasted only from Easter to Pentecost. 

Suppose we do not recognize that Jesus is using familiar images rather than providing information. In that case, we risk interpreting the text of the Gospel in a blasphemous way and attributing to God the justice of the executioner, but this is our justice, not God’s. 

Indeed, the images are powerful. There is a warning: Be careful, because the part of your life in which you have not built love ends up in the garbage dump of hell; there, it burns, and nothing remains of that part. It would be dramatic to discover at the end of your life that perhaps a large part was not lived humanely because you did not love. At this point, the question is: Is Jesus condemning these unhappy people, or is he condemning the wrong choices of life that they made? 

Jesus taught us that the heavenly Father hates evil. No one hates sin as He does, because sin disfigures the faces of His children, who do not resemble Him, for He is love. The heavenly Father loves and will always unconditionally love the sinner because he is His son or daughter who has sadly made unhappy decisions. 

Remember that nobody does only evil; nobody is always only a goat. Everyone loves, a lot or a little; they are lambs, and will this ‘lamb part’ of their life also end in hell? If the whole person ends up in hell, there is no doubt that the divine portion within them will also be destroyed. But it would be ridiculous to think that way. Therefore, people do not end up in the fire of hell; what ends there is everything, and only evil remains in each person. What is the fruit of the Spirit of Christ that will remain in each person? 

Let us now listen to the objection from those on the left and the response that the Son of Man gives:


Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Those on the left are then surprised and puzzled by the conviction. It seems they were not expecting it. The question they asked allowed Jesus to be heard for the fourth time, and he repeated the list of tasks to do if one wanted to resemble the Son of Man. 

This surprise from the people on the left is an invitation to reflection, as it may surprise many believers who are scrupulous in their devout practices. Still, perhaps they have forgotten that what makes them look like the Master is the works of love. This is why he repeated them four times. 

Among all the works of mercy known throughout the ancient Middle East, the mouth of Jesus is an absolute novelty. Here is what he says: he considers these people in need his brothers and sisters, and adds that what is done to them is done to him: “They did it to me,” to the Son of God. What does it mean? 

Let’s try to clear up a misunderstanding that arises from certain phrases we often hear: ‘That person is unpleasant to me … and unpleasant to everyone, but I love her because in her I see Jesus, in her I love Jesus – I don’t love him because he is a wretch, but I love Jesus in him.’ Or also, ‘I love him for the love of God.’ If someone loves me for the love of God, I just don’t like him … But if he, instead, loves me because God made him understand that I am lovable, I accept his love. Jesus taught us that every person is lovable and adorable because they are the son or daughter of God. 

This is why Jesus has included the incarcerated among the needy; they are different from others in need because others appear to be without guilt, whereas prisoners are responsible for their condition, having committed crimes and transgressions. Jesus says: ‘In him is present the dignity of the Son of God.’ When you recognize him as a child of God, you put yourself at his service; you love him. He is a person in need of affection, understanding, and esteem. 

Divine sonship cannot be canceled, even by the greatest sin. The conclusion: “These will go to perpetual punishment (torture) and the righteous to eternal life.” This is the only time in the Gospels that the term ‘punishment’ appears. If we consult the original Greek text, we find the term “κόλασιν’ – ‘kólasin,’ which does not mean torture or punishment. The first meaning of this word in Greek is ‘to prune.’ It comes from the verb ‘kolatzo,’ which means to clean. This is what Jesus said when he spoke of the vine and its branches: a vine with dry branches, and later these branches are thrown into the fire because cleaning is done. 

Pruning is painful; let’s call it ‘purgatory’ if we want to use traditional language. It is painful pruning because, before the Son of Man, we will all be pruned of the dead branches of our lives at the end of life. When we have not served the brother in need, those are moments in our lives that have not produced love; they have run dry; the sap of the Spirit of Christ has not passed through these branches, and these branches will be thrown into the fire, and nothing will be left of them. 

It is that part of our life that is canceled, but the pruning cannot for sure touch the identity of the son or daughter of God present in each person. And then the Son of man, as Paul says in writing to the Corinthians, “Will give the kingdom into the hands of the Father.” Surely no child of yours will be missing; otherwise, the party will not be able to start. 

This is the Gospel; this is the Good News. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.