In ancient times, the end of world history drew the attention of both the Church and pagans like a magnet. In our own time, by contrast, a kind of tacit convention has arisen, and speaking about it has become somewhat improper. The ancients expected that...
In ancient times, the end of world history drew the attention of both the Church and pagans like a magnet. In our own time, by contrast, a kind of tacit convention has arisen, and speaking about it has become somewhat improper. The ancients expected the end to come any day, while we prefer to pretend it will never come. So will it be tomorrow or never?
When the end will come matters only if you are concerned about whether you will have time to prepare for it. Subconsciously we calculate that for a while we can live as we please and then still have time to prepare for the end of the world. During exams, for example, you calculate: there are four days until the next exam, so you can spend two days having fun, one day recovering, and one day reading the textbook. Whether you expect the end of the world very soon or not at all soon is only a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.
Jesus' words about the last day mostly lie outside this perspective. He emphasizes only that the heavenly Father alone knows that day and hour. The Gospel seeks to bring something else home to our hearts. The essence of what happens at the end, at the Last Judgment, is separation. In today's reading the Lord Jesus says: “and shall sever the wicked from among the just.” The Greek ἀφορίζω, aphorizō, means to separate, set boundaries, define. As He said in the parable of the wheat and the tares, both are left to grow together until the day of harvest, when they will be separated.
From a practical standpoint, what matters for us is this. On the last day the separation, the distinction between the righteous and the wicked—Greek πονηρός, ponēros, one who causes much trouble, bad—will occur as a matter of fact, and it is not clear that our opinions and wishes will be taken into account. But today we can choose on which side of that boundary we will stand. By choosing to trust Jesus today, we enter the day that follows the last, for “he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
