Homily Five for the Sunday of the Last Judgement (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Five for the Last Judgement

By St. John of Kronstadt

(Delivered in 1907)

The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is usually called the Dread Judgment, and rightly so, because at it the living and the dead will be judged. Dreadful is the judgment: for it will terrify every creature of heaven and earth, invisible and visible. Dreadful will it be to the heavenly creatures: for the powers of heaven will be moved. Dreadful also to the earth: for the earth will shake in its very foundations. At the second glorious coming of Christ to earth, the loud voice of the Archangel and God's trumpet will be heard by all; this sound, or rather thunder, will resound throughout the entire universe: the dead will rise, having heard it, and will go to judgment.

Here, first of all, there will be great fear for sinners when the sound of the trumpet commands every soul to enter its body - that body which, having once turned to dust, will now, by God's command, again receive its composition and its members.

For as a seed sown in the ground, although it decays, yet in its time it sprouts and returns first to grass, then to an ear, and bears fruit, according to the word of the Lord: "If a grain of wheat falls on the ground and does not die, it alone abides; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24); so also the human body, having died and decayed and become dust, in one moment receives vegetative power from the sound of the trumpet and becomes a body again and in a moment is revived by its soul.

At that time, I say, there will be fear in the sinful soul, released from the dungeons of hades to the body for union with it; because when it approaches its body, it will see it completely different from what it was before. In this life it was comely, beautiful, pleasant, but then it will be ugly, vile, disgusting, like some kind of monster; and before it is cast into hell, it will already bear in itself the beginnings of eternal torment and itself will be like a living hell. The sinful soul, seeing all this, will be horrified by its body, like a fiery place of torment; it will abhor it, as an intolerable abomination, and will not want to enter it.

Then another fear will take hold of the sinner – from the revelation of all his filthy, sinful deeds and from indescribable shame; for, upon the sinner’s resurrection from the grave, all his sins will immediately be revealed, and all those filthy deeds of his which he had previously done secretly from everyone in a hidden place, in the darkness of the night, will be clearly revealed before the whole world. Then the words of the Gospel will be fulfilled in fact: "For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops" (Luke 12:2–3). A thief spoke in the ear of another thief, a fornicator to a fornicator, counseling for sin; and then these filthy words will be trumpeted, as in a loud trumpet, for the whole universe to hear! Oh what a shame it will be for us sinners! But those who, being sinners like us in this life, were later corrected by true repentance and were deemed worthy to be among the saints, while we remained without repentance, will especially shame us. And what shall we say about those who in this life are considered good, truthful and holy, but condemn others? Will they not be extremely ashamed when those whom they condemned and laughed at and considered sinners, they see in glory as righteous, and themselves ashamed and, like antichrists, cast into the abyss, because everyone who condemns his brother is antichrist?

To the fear that comes from conviction and extreme shame, a new fear will be added when sinners see those whom they hated, persecuted, saddened, insulted, beat, tortured, killed in this life!

They will hear how these latter cry out to God against them: "Judge, O Lord, those who have wronged us, take vengeance, O Lord, the righteous Judge! Repay them for the evil they have done to us!" Every righteous man will then say to his offender or murderer: "Why have you wronged me; why have you persecuted me, tormented me and killed me without mercy."

With bitter repentance and groaning the sinners will then say: "We fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour. How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!" (cf. Wis. 5:1-5 ). In addition to all this, a special and strong fear will be brought upon sinners by the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge and terrible Avenger. "Who can stand before His wrath? And who can resist the anger of His fury?" (Nahum 1:6).

What do we sinners expect to hear from such an angry and dreadful face? Nothing other than this voice, which is more dreadful than all thunder and lightning, namely: "Depart Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and His angels" (Matt. 25:41).

After all this, dark demons will approach and drag sinners, whose very appearance is more terrible than any torment. They will approach and drag them into the hellish abyss, the eternal fire and into Tartarus and into the sleepless worm of the endless eternal.

Let us, sinners, always have in mind this fear and horror that will befall us on the day of Judgment, and let us be afraid of the torment, the fear of which no tongue can utter, no mind can comprehend.

Let us fear His Dread Judgment, let us fear and stop sinning. Let us remember our last things more often: death, hell, judgment, so as not to sin. Let us appease the dread Judge with tears, repentance, alms before our departure, so that we may be delivered from the fate of the condemned and be numbered among the justified. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.