Meeting Jesus again for the last time

 Matthew 25:31-46 

I’ve been wondering. What did Jesus really look like? Did he look like a king? When we celebrate the feast of Christ the King - a feast celebrated just before Thanksgiving - do we think of him on his throne, the nations prostrate before him at the end of time? Or do we think of him hungry, homeless, naked, thirsty, sick, a prisoner, in need of our help?

The season of Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas Day, heralds the once and future king: the arrival of the infant Child and the One who comes again on clouds of glory at the consummation of time. In the “scene beyond dreams” of Matthew 25, Christ on his throne gathers the nations before him and says to some of them “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick or in prison and you visited me.” To others, “... and you did not.” When did we see you? The people ask, in evident surprise. “As much as you did for the least of my family you did to me.”

A friend of mine had a funny job: he called it "talking to murderers." To make it even funnier, that is what he did. He got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, drove over the hill, and went behind bars, into a maximum-security state prison. And there he would listen to someone say, “When I get out of this place, I'm going to find the guy who put me here, and I'm going to kill him.” And then, they would ask my friend, are you going to tell them I said that? And my friend would say, yes. Because that was his job: he was evaluating their psychological fitness for parole. Over the years, it got kind of wearing. Talking to murderers. Being alone with them locked up in a little room while they told you what they did, what they had done, what they were planning to do.

When Emma Lazarus wrote the poem "the new Colossus" that is on the base of the Statue of Liberty, she left out a few things. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” and “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" - but she didn't say, “Give me your murderers, give me your rapists, give me your armed robbers.” But that is what Jesus got, when he said, “I was in prison and you visited me.” That is who he meant. 

Before my friend told me about his job, I found out about someone else who would, a combat veteran, who, after Sunday mass, got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, and headed to that same prison, where he would talk to murderers. He did it, I discovered, because of something in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. “I was in prison and you visited me.” Jesus didn't say, “I won't look very nice. You won't recognize me. I stink and I will scare you. You will be afraid of me.” No, he did not say that. 

We don't expect to see the face of Christ in someone so reprehensible. But I don't think Jesus left anyone out. His kingdom takes all kinds. Even us. Even the wretched refuse of our lives.

And somehow in those wretched awful people and the wretched awful parts of our own lives, still he is king.

Still when we get to the end of time and stand before the throne of God, we will find ourselves looking at - ourselves... and the worst of us, the worst of human nature, redeemed in what can only be divine strength. 

For he embraces us, as we are. He does not crown us or condone us. No: when he is talking to murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, he does not say, “Never mind, forget it, it does not matter, you do not matter.” He says, “I love you nevertheless.” 

And so I love your friend too, this one over here, who has seen more firearms than many a prisoner has ever seen, the one who came to visit me, the old veteran of a lost army, who heard what I had to say in the gospel: “I was in prison and you came to see me.” Wretched? But somehow redeemed. Only one king can do that, the one whose arrival we anticipate during Advent.

“Coming to meet Jesus for the last time”, Keeping the Faith, Arizona Daily Star, December 6, 2020, E3. (Original title: Meeting Jesus Again for the Last Time)

https://tucson.com/meeting-jesus-again-for-the-last-time/article_10b7de00-0e9a-5adb-8762-1e0bb400af1a.html