Judgment is a traditional Advent theme, and our reading from Jeremiah gives us judgment in a particular form, as the execution of justice and righteousness in the land. Traditional Advent preaching on death, judgment, heaven, and hell, has usually had in view God’s judgment on our own individual state: the judgment of our mortal selves and our eternal assignment to either one place or the other. The coming of “the Son of Man… with power and great glory” (Lk. 21:36) as in the Gospel today, suggests a focus on Christ’s coming again and the end of all things: the prologue to judgment.
Our reading from Jeremiah gives us a slightly different frame for judgment. It prophesies the coming of the “righteous Branch”: the Messiah or anointed one who will reestablish the Kingdom of Israel. The Branch is the one who will execute justice and righteousness: “righteousness” as when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, and “justice” as the execution of that will by judgment. “He shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 33:15), as it says in our reading.
Let’s think about human judgment for a moment. When a court renders judgment, it looks back over the shoulder at something wrong that’s been done in the past. Who did what and when and where is relevant to the judgment; also to a certain extent the intention of the perpetrators. Courts may take up mitigating factors that bear on their judgment; they also consider punishment and entertain pleas for mercy. They seek to make a wrong “right.” All of this plays into the vision of the Final Judgment, where God the Judge renders judgment on human sin.
Judgment distinguishes guilt from innocence: at the end of the day, the jury delivers a verdict, either “guilty” or “not guilty.” Likewise, the Final Judgment divides sheep from goats, as in Jesus’ parable in Matthew’s Gospel: some destined for eternal punishment and some for eternal life (Matt. 25:46). Though courts render judgment, and needs must if justice is to be done, we know that fallible human courts can get it wrong, and deal unjustly.
By contrast, the parable of the sheep and the goats gives us a decisive adjudication of guilt or innocence, a final and definitive judgment on sin, but we also know that the dividing line of sin runs right through the heart of each one of us. Separating the guilty from the innocent, short of the Final Judgment, is impossible. Only the self-righteous are so lacking in self-awareness as to practice the rush to judgment. “Do not pronounce judgment before the time,” St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “before the Lord comes” (1 Cor. 4:5).
Though human courts attempt to “right the wrong,” experience shows they have limited success in doing so. They render judgment on past wrongs, but what is achieved rarely restores what existed before. We have even less success, in political terms, in attempting to reach into the future and guarantee justice by legislation. We frame laws according to our best judgment, but the law of unintended consequences still holds. We try to secure the future, through political action, but fallible human judgment keeps tripping over its own feet, and placing obstacles in its own way.
All of this stands in contrast to the prophetic promise from our first reading today. “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land”(Jer. 33:15). The Messiah foretold in our reading is a “just judge” who “judges righteously” (Ps. 7:11), as it says in Psalm 7. But his rule will no longer rely on the simple retrospective rendering of judgment on the past, but will stretch on to establish justice in the future. As it says in Psalm 94, “For judgment will again be just, and all the true of heart will follow it” (Ps. 94:15).
Advent marks off that time in which we prepare for the coming of the “righteous Branch,” the Messiah who will execute justice and establish righteousness. Let this be our constant prayer. Judgment will not only be rendered retrospectively, with a glance over the shoulder at the past, but prospectively, as we set our eyes on what lies ahead. God’s judgment will establish a whole new context and a whole new world. Only God, the righteous judge, can do that. As we pray in the Lord’s prayer, may God’s kingdom come, and his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.