However, when the Day of Judgment comes, when the
resurrection of the dead comes—and this book talks about the resurrection of
the dead, over a thousand years before Christ—when the sinners see the
righteous shining like the sun, they will be in dreadful fear, and in anguish
they will groan and say, this is the man whom we once held in derision! We
thought that His life was madness! We are the fools! We took our fill of the
paths of lawlessness and destruction, and we journeyed through trackless
deserts. What good has our boasted wealth profited us? We were deceived. We
were deceived. These two chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon [refers to expanded
content of homily] present us with a tremendous picture of the psychology of
the ungodly—the mind of the worldly man—who will discover his deception on that
day.
The Apostle Peter also talks about all these things.
These are exceedingly important—let’s look at this. Since all these things are
thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness
and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God because
of which the heavens wilt be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt
with fire! (2 Pet 3:11-12).
So why are we waiting ourselves dealing only with
earthly matters in a world that is about to be pulverized, to dissolve and
collapse, a world that is going to be renovated? How should we spend our lives,
knowing all this? Shouldn’t we be characterized byjholy conduct? And see what
he says, ... yearning for and hastening... yearning and hastening with a joyous
expectation, and racing towards that day of the coming of the Lord.
Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios(+2006)
Orthodox Heritage
Page 30 Vol 14, Issue 01-08
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