When people “rush” Christmas, they pay an oblique tribute
to the Advent mysteries, because they want something to celebrate, and
in the darkening days of the year they know that celebration has
something to do with light. If only they paid attention to what Christ
shows about those mysteries of death, judgment, heaven and hell, they’d
have a much better celebration. “These things I have spoken to you, that
my joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled” (John 15:11).
The second mystery of Advent is God’s judgment: His design for the
world and how we fit into His plan. We shall be accountable to Him in
the “particular judgment” when we die, for what we have done with the
gift of life He has given us. This will not be like facing a judge in
court. It will be like facing one’s spouse after a long separation and
reaching out. There can only be an embrace if there is love. St. John
Chrysostom said that in the moment of judgment, Christ will ask only:
“How much did you love?” If the temporal world was created out of
eternity by God’s love, we can fit into that eternity only if love is
the passport.
The essence of divine justice, then, consists in how one
reciprocates the love that gives life. “Evil men do not understand
justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully” (Proverbs
28:5). That is easier said than done, for how can the Lord’s justice be
understood in part, let alone “fully”? And yet, the answer is clear. The
Lord’s justice, which is the way He designs the world and all its
motions and our participation in it, is beautiful, true, and good, and
while we may not easily define beauty, truth and goodness, we know their
result: joy.
Insanity is the inability to make right judgment. There is more
insanity than we realize. The local police once gave me a special code
number to call if I saw anyone in our neighborhood behaving strangely,
and I told them that if I obliged them, their telephone would be ringing
off the hook. But there is a wider kind of insanity, and it is life
lived contrary to God’s will. It is the source of sadness, and nothing
is more insane than to be sad while being alive.
There are many reasons for sorrow in “this valley of tears,” but
such sorrow is not despair. The cynic may say that the light at the end
of the tunnel is an approaching train, but the saints know that the
light is Christ Himself. As the judge who is righteous and true, He
says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have
overcome the world” (John 16:33).
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A photo of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin strolling along a rustic stream, fishing rod in hand was one of the more amazing images of the early 21st Century. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he was wearing a crucifix. Consider here that Russia’s first citizen was a former member of a godless Communist Party in the former Soviet Union; indeed, the station chief for the KGB in East Germany. At some point after Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin must have had a “road to Damascus” moment; a point where he cast off the conventional wisdom, the old ideology, and plotted a new course with a new moral compass. The cold warriors of Communism had been the enemies of all religions; but now, a president and prime minister becomes a defender of the Russian faith.
