My mind wandered in church this morning. Is that a sin on Easter? I pondered the music for our next orchestra concert – Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.
Music draws us into the emotions of life – joy, sorrow, questions, confusion. Mahler described the first movement of his symphony:
"We stand by the coffin of a person well loved. His whole life, his struggles, his passions, his sufferings and his accomplishments on earth once more for the last time pass before us… 'What next? What is life and what is death? Why did you live? Why did you suffer?… Do our life and death have a meaning?'"
I admire Mahler for facing these deep questions of life, but I also question his answers. At the end of the symphony, the earth cracks open. The dead rise. They tremble "as the Eternal Judge approaches…
"What happens now is far from expected: …All is quiet and blissful. Lo and behold: there is no judgment, no sinners, no just men, no great and small; there is no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence."
Is this possible? Can there be love without judgment? Before my mind's eye appear victims of the Holocaust, people killed in Stalin’s purge, those annihilated through genocide. I see people hurt by the church, murdered in the Inquisition, violated by priests. They gaze on the face of God. They plead for justice. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Yes, He will do right. God will not brush evil aside. There can be no love without judgment. But then I see the Cross. God poured out His wrath on wickedness, and He Himself paid the price "...that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26 NKJV).
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
