Jesus judges with a power of a different quality from the power of the judgement of John. Jesus relinquishes the power to destroy others and becomes a vulnerable one, exposed to the deathly powers of others, prepared to be destroyed, to give everything away in the cause of love and life. The Last Judgement of Jesus is something else altogether because it is not concerned with death. When it comes, it comes on the other side of death, death which he has overcome, and it carries the power of life in all its fullness.
I managed to get Frankie Goes to Hollywood into my sermon on The Last Judgement today – in a good way. Read it here: The judgement of Jesus and the judgement of John.
