JUDGE NOTHING BEFORE THE TIME

A REFLECTION FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

I was driving around the evening streets of Cincinnati on Thursday, admiring all the Christmas lights and decorations, Christmas trees in all the windows, all brightly lit with colors glowing and lighting up the night.  And with all this light, it’s hard to remember that Advent is actually a time of darkness.

It’s not meant to be the kind of darkness that brings despair.  On the contrary, it’s the darkness before the dawn, a time of hope that soon a Saviour shall be born, and that the Light of the World will dwell among men, dispelling that darkness and giving light to mankind.

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that in times of darkness we must not wander blindly about, but must wait for the light to illuminate and dispel the darkness.  Then and only then may we see our way to performing our tasks.  The particular task St. Paul has in mind is that of judging others.  “Judge nothing,” he says, “before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”

Christmas is coming.  Unto us shall be born a Child, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.  He it is, who with his coming, did indeed bring to light the hidden things of darkness.  He did so with the light of his teaching, with the light of the sacraments he instituted, with the light of the Church he founded.  All this light, and yet today, it seems to be dimming once again.  If this be the case, it is not because, the light was insufficient to last longer than two thousand years.  It’s not a case of the battery having to be recharged.  If the light of faith is diminishing in this 21^st century, surely it is because of the free will with which the Creator adorned us.  In other words, it isn’t God’s failure to create enough light.  On the contrary—“Let there be light!”  It was first thing God did when he created.  And when man first dared to switch off that light with his original sin, God’s response was to send his only-begotten Son to redeem his creation and to be once again the Light of the World.

When it comes to judging those who act today as though there were no God, who sin as though there were no heaven to hope for, nor hell to fear, we are certainly free to light a match in our darkness to see what they’re doing.  It’s for our own protection, sometimes possibly to allow us to correct the actions of others.  Parents may punish and reward their children, the courts may send people to prison, we judge all the time.  But let’s remember, we are viewing them only by the light of a matchstick.  We can never have enough light to illuminate the workings of their mind, to judge their motivations, their conscience, all the factors that contribute to their actions, good or bad.

Only the Light of the World is sufficient to allow us to see into people’s minds, to judge the sincerity with which they do unpleasant things, the love of God in their hearts as they fight temptation or repent their crimes.  Only the coming of Christ can possibly “make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”  So judge nothing before the Lord shall come in glory to judge both the quick and the dead.  Rejoice, the Lord is nigh…