It can be scary to hear about God's judgments. Yes, we speak in plural... We've all heard of a particular judgment (of each) at the time of death and, of course, we all know of a Final Judgment, the outcome will be for all eternity.
However, the Bible and our own experience we should take care more of the judgments that God holds in the history of every person and of course in the history of nations.
God is sovereign (Psalm 89: 11 and 14) and therefore, nothing that happens escapes his evaluation and his trial.
On the way to judge own God, Scripture always emphasizes three things: - God is a (even scary) just judge - Which is a very merciful judge - That "their time is not our time" (which can sometimes move some superficial believers to despair).
The readings we have shared, allow us to learn more about the "righteous judgments of God."
The first one (clearly stated in the reading from Isaiah) is that any human pride can be accommodated before God: our eventual arrogance, our talk derogatory, our readiness to "judge" (and condemn ....) our neighbours are annihilated in this life, by the righteous judgment of God.
St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans warns us, in different ways and with different tones, which every human being is exposed to the wrath of God and that therefore, no human justice will never be in a position to bear.
Only through our personal relationship with Christ (by faith and baptism) we can expect a benevolent treatment from God. Thus, although our conscience accuses us of true and actual sin, justification by faith in Christ will work the miracle to make us appear as "fair" in the eyes of God.
In parallel and eventually converging, we will operate in a process of sanctification through which the power of sin will go damping, by the predominance of God's Grace: and those sins and bad habits that seemed insurmountable, agree be overcome.
The Gospel offers an overview of the Christian Era as a time to be carrying out God's judgment on an unbelieving world, which are often part even our own friends and relatives and in which the two main priorities to overcome, will: maintain fidelity to Christ at any cost and not be isolated from the community of believers.
Author: José Luis Mira Conca
