November rushes headlong toward the end of the church year. The scripture lessons also rush towards the end– the end of the world and the final judgment. We heard it this past Sunday: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

I have never been one to dwell on the end of the world. My reasons are simple. First, only God knows when the end with occur. Second, there is nothing we human being can do about it. God will bring the world to its fulfillment when God chooses and in the way God chooses.

I have heard television evangelists talk about the end. The main theme always seems to be that all those people out there who don’t agree with the preacher are going to wind up in you-know-where. I have never liked fright-tactic preaching. Nevertheless, I can’t ignore the passages in Scripture that point to the final judgement. I take comfort, though, from these words of Elaine Heath: “The One who judges the world is the One who died to save the word. In this is our hope.”*

Maybe I would be terrified of the final judgement if it were not for the fact that Jesus Christ who is the judge is also the savior who gave his life for our sake. So we Christians look with joy and hope to the final day. As Wilhelm Wesels put it:

     “O happy day when we shall stand amid the heav’nly throng
      And sing with hosts from ev’ry land the new celestial song.” (ELW 441)

Read Matthew 25:1-13 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

*Elaine A. Heath, The Mystical Way of Evangelism, p. 50.