The Meeting of the Lord

Today we celebrate the bright feast of the Meeting of the Lord.

As we read in today’s Gospel, today the infant Christ is brought into the Temple where he is received by the Righteous Simeon… a man to whom it was revealed that he would not die until he saw the Messiah. What sweeter words can be spoken than those of St Simeon who, having waited a lifetime, now held the Christ child in his arms, and declared: ‘Now lettest Thou, Thy servant, depart in peace, O Master, according to Thy word. For behold my eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a Light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.’

It is an intimate and tender moment… and it is the fulfillment of a lifetime of hope and longing for the Righteous Simeon. For many long years he lived in expectation, in hungering and thirsting for the fulfillment of the promise given by God to His people and, having lived his life in righteousness, this meeting of the Lord is the greatest moment and blessing of his life.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ… our lives should be lived in this same sense of longing, of hungering and thirsting for the Kingdom of Heaven, and in preparation for our own meeting with the Lord. For each and every one of us shall have this meeting and will inevitably stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ.

In addition to the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, today is the Sunday of the Last Judgment. In the Gospel appointed for this day, Christ speaks about what will happen at this specific point in time when He will ‘come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him’.

At His coming, ‘He will sit on the throne of His glory,’ and all of the nations will be gathered before Him. He will separate them ‘as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats’. The sheep will be placed on His right hand, and the goats on the left.

To the sheep, He will say ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’. This kingdom is offered to the sheep because of their compassion and service to those in need. Jesus says, ‘…for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

When asked how this could be so, Christ answers them by saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to me’.

Seated on His throne of judgment, Christ will then turn to the goats on His left and say, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels’. They will be condemned because they did not feed Him when He was hungry, nor gave Him drink when He was thirsty, nor took Him in when He was a stranger, nor clothed Him when He was naked, nor visited Him when He was sick or in prison.

This is the scene at the dread judgment day, a day that awaits each and every one of us. It is a sobering thing to realize that we must stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an accounting of our life.

And what is it that the Lord Jesus Christ will ask of us? I think, as this morning’s Gospel makes clear, the essential question that will be put before us by our Lord Jesus Christ is this: ‘Have you loved Me?’

When Christ was hungry, did we give Him food? When He was thirsty, did we give Him drink?  When He came to us as a stranger, did we take Him in? In all of our daily actions and thoughts – do we show love for Christ? And have we recognized that in all of our acts, in all or our thoughts, in all of our interactions with ‘the least of these My brethren’ - in other words, the way we treat all those around us - we are expressing or not expressing our love for Christ Himself?

Let us reflect on this awe-striking image of standing before the judgment seat of Christ. What shall we answer on that fateful day when He asks us: ‘Have you loved Me?’

The Church continues to draw us forward to Great Lent, wherein we are called to discipline ourselves with fasting, to increasing our prayer, with a call to reducing the distractions in our lives, to works of charity, to extending ourselves in love toward those around us. What is the point of all this? Why do we fast, why do we pray, why do we strive toward kindness and generosity of spirit toward others? All must be done out of love for Christ our God!

During this season of Great Lent, we will find ourselves confronted with choices about what we might eat. We will find ourselves confronted with choices about whether or not we will make some time to say our prayers. We will find ourselves confronted with choices about how we will react to temptations and the provocations of those around us. In all these things, may we be guided with the remembrance of Christ’s question: ‘Have you loved Me?’… remembering that whatsoever we do those around us, we do to Christ Jesus.

If we can approach our Lenten fast with this guiding thought in our hearts and minds – Am I doing all that I can to love God? - we will be attending to the fast in the right spirit.

Our efforts to discipline ourselves should be done out of love for God, as a means of expressing our love and gratitude to God, and as a means by which we raise our mind, warm our heart, and tame our will toward loving God more fully.

May we strive to live our lives in such a way that our meeting of the Lord may be the greatest blessing and fulfillment of our lives. When Christ asks us, ‘Have you loved Me?’… may we answer in sincerity and purity of heart, ‘Yea, O Lord, you know that I love you!’ And may we then be blessed to hear those most precious and longed-for words: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant… Enter ye into the joy of your Lord.’