The End

 

It is snowing outside my window; the first snow in Toronto this year. This is also the Solemnity of Christ the King, the end of the liturgical year.

The readings reflect what Christians believe will happen at the end of time. 

They give no support for the common secular “I’m OK, you’re OK” attitude. They see good guys, and bad guys, and a war of good against evil.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory,

and all the angels with him,

he will sit upon his glorious throne,

and all the nations will be assembled before him.

And he will separate them one from another,

as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right,

'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’

…

Then he will say to those on his left,

'Depart from me, you accursed,

into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

…

And these will go off to eternal punishment,

but the righteous to eternal life."

And this repeats a motif in the Old Testament reading from Ezekiel:

Thus says the Lord GOD:

I myself will look after and tend my sheep. 

…

The lost I will seek out,

the strayed I will bring back,

the injured I will bind up,

the sick I will heal,

but the sleek and the strong I will destroy,

shepherding them rightly.

As for you, my sheep, says the Lord GOD,

I will judge between one sheep and another,

between rams and goats.”

The middle reading, from the Epistles, says that when Jesus comes again, he will 

“destroy every sovereignty and every authority and power. 

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”

You can’t be complacent or play both sides. Everyone can’t be your friend. You are either a sheep or a goat.