Wednesday, December 26, 2001

Read: Matthew 25:31-46

We are now going through the season of winter, having our existence enclosed within thick coats and gloves to keep our body temperature warm and comfortable. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, the snow will cover the soil for the seeds to endure the severe cold, making us feel the mystery of seasonal change at a comfortable distance. Though we may know the theory of Nuclear Winter, (the aftermath of nuclear explosion that would obstruct the sun's rays from penetrating through the huge mushroom clouds and make the world continuously freezing cold), we do rarely admit that the mushroom clouds do in fact begin to rise from our hearts.

The word "Judgment" makes one envision cold winter, sending a chill down our spines at the mere thought of the possibility that we could be sentenced to eternal punishment, if we are not evasive or sophisticated Christians. I don't think many Christians seriously question themselves. Why? Because we don't really think this place called "Hell" exists? Or, because we think that we will surely go to "Heaven"? Or, because Jesus was punished on behalf of our sins, we've been forgiven - at least from eternal damnation? As for me, I don't accept the Bible in its old, literal expression, without having gone through my existential struggle with the interpretative process. But, I do think that there will be, and should be "Judgment" of our lives.

Without judgment, divine or human, there will be no justice. Without justice, there will always be the so-called "least of these" whom Jesus mentions in Matthew, repeating their cruel conditions of life, generation after generation, without the hope of exit from that fate, and the so-called "privileged" who always try to make Jesus their patron Christ. The God of Jesus is not the god of fate, but the God who calls us to be free from fate, ordering us to shape and enact our own destinies, as Harvey Cox, an American theologian, once commented. Hebrew people have a word for it - "Shalom." Shalom, in the sense of love and joy and peace, can only be achieved through the judgment on the part of the privileged first of all.

Sungsoo Hans Hahn

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