Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Heartfelt congratulations with the feasts of the Resurrection of the Lord and the Holy Apostle James, called the Brother of the Lord, that is, the son of Joseph. St. James was also the first bishop of Jerusalem, wrote one of the Catholic Epistles, and also composed one of the first texts of the Divine Liturgy. According to church tradition St. James’ knees were worn out, all covered in calluses because of his ceaseless prayers on bent knees. He was very much admired as a righteous and holy man both by the Jews who came to believe in Christ as well as those who did not.

For about a month already we’ve been discussing the topic of death. Last week we talked about the general conditions in which the person finds himself after death. We examined the state of both the body as well as of the soul. o do this we turned to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. This parable was read today during the Divine Liturgy. We could say that the main idea, or at least one of the main ideas, of this parable is that one’s condition after death depends on how one spent his or her life here on earth. Abraham told the rich man the following words: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” Although today’s parable does not mention a judgement soon after death at which the fate of the newly-deceased is decided, other places in Holy Scripture talk about this. For example, St. Paul writes: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9: 27).

Many interesting questions arise from this. Today let’s focus on the following: why is judgment necessary, since God already knows everything without witnesses, lawyers, and a court case? And what can we say about the way this judgement takes place? Of course, judgement over the departed takes place not for the Lord God to be informed about our good and evil deeds here on earth (He already knows this), but so that we ourselves see our true spiritual condition. It seems to me that sometimes we deceive ourselves and think that our spiritual state is better than it really is. We make excuses for ourselves or compare ourselves not to the saints, but to sinners and come to the conclusion that we’re better than they. Sometimes we sin and then explain it away as a result of circumstances or blame someone else for our plight, etc. In one’s mind it’s always possible to explain one’s behaviour and to make oneself not a sinner, but a saint, or at least an average person, perhaps not particularly good, but at the same time, not particularly sinful. The judgement after death should make our true spiritual condition very clear and obvious.

How exactly this judgement takes place is hard to say, but some things we can define. We can say that the angels, both good and evil, participate in this judgement. They perform the roles of witnesses and lawyers. The evil ones point with meticulous precision to all our evil and sinful deeds, as well as to the commandments and church canons and demand that the law of God be applied strictly. Our guardian angel, together with other angels, can draw attention to our righteous deeds, but of course primarily they call on God’s mercy. It’s frightening to think about how clear everything will become. It’s frightening to think what our inner spiritual condition will be like when a true picture of our life will open up before us and it will become impossible to hide this truth.

Today let’s pray to the Holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, so that we may now, in this earthly life, clearly see our sins and sincerely repent of them, so that after our death we may painlessly pass through the judgement that awaits us. Let’s also pray that the Apostle James intercede before our Lord Jesus Christ that He grant peace to the Holy Land – their earthly homeland, as well as peace between the Orthodox people of Ukraine and Russia.

priest Alexis