In creation I spoke of God's love and word which created a personal relationship between God and God's Creation, a Creation which God willed into being and for which God has an ultimate purpose.
In speaking of Sin, I described two Biblical concepts of Sin. The first is the human choice to go against God's creative will - this is traditionally called disobedience. The second is sin as separation from God a dreadful alienation where humans ignore and disregard God.
Today I will deal equally briefly with the concept of Judgement. Again, this is a very complicated idea and we could argue about it all day. I would like to make a few points which I have found helpful in my faith journey.
The first thing that springs to mind is that Judgement refers to the Last Judgement, when all things are brought before the Judgement of God. This is what we refer to in the creed, when we say that Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. This Judgement will be the final and total victory of good over evil and their final separation. Human beings will be judged according to their relationship with God. If a person refuses to accept God's offer of a loving relationship, then that person will themself bear the responsibility for eternal separation from God.
This Judgement, in terms of what I said about Creation, is the point at which God's purposes for Creation are fulfilled. A person who chooses to abandon the joy of such a glorious fulfilment makes a truly hellish choice.
But a Biblical understanding of Judgement is not limited to the Last Days. In fact, we find the process of Judgement taking place throughout the Bible. Judgement takes place whenever a choice, or an action, or a person's life or even the life of a nation is weighed in the balance of justice. Sometimes the judgement is inevitable - the wrong choices of the past mean that disaster is about to happen. In St Paul's letter to the Corinthians he refers to the Israelites who perished in their wanderings in the desert. This is described in his letter and in the Old Testament as the inevitable consequence of their disobedience to God.
But Judgement is also an opportunity for change, a point of balance, that time when a decision must be made. St Paul calls this a time of testing. He warns the Corinthians that the Israelites failed the test and that they should be aware of the testing in their lives. We might call such a point of testing, a crisis.
The New Testament word for Judgement is the Greek word "krisis"; and we know that a crisis in our lives means that we need to make a decision.
In the Gospel for today Jesus speaks of the crisis that Jerusalem faces. Will it be gathered into God's love, like chickens are gathered under the wings of a mother hen? Or will it instead reject Jesus as it has rejected the prophets. The arrival of Jesus at the gates of Jerusalem was the time of judgement for the city and its people.
This theme is developed in the Gospel of John, who clearly describes Jesus' coming as the judgement of the world. Jesus told Nicodemus, "God sent the son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light."
So, for Christians, the Judgement is not limited to the Judgement on the last day, but every day we live our lives in the light of Christ is a day of Judgement and of decision. We might look at the life of some great person, Fred Hollows or Mother Theresa, and think, "What a wonderful example!" and this inspires us to improve our lives. This is good. But how much better if we could use the life, the character, the actions and the teachings of Jesus to inform and change us. If we could imitate his compassion, his love and steadfastness, his faith and relationship to God, what would we be like? The answer to that question comes from John's Gospel again. Those who hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent him have eternal life, for them, the time of judgement is over and they have passed from death to life.
This, then is the challenge for us, to be aware that judgement is not something to wait for with fear, but is a process of discernment to embrace with joy, something that can lead us to a fuller life. Jesus came not to condemn but to give life and to give it abundantly.
How we respond this challenge of judgement is another question, the question of repentance, and that question I will discuss next week.