When the King Sorts the Sheep

Jesus walked out of the temple, past the offering box where the widow had dropped her two coins. His friends kept looking back over their shoulders at the walls. They could not stop thinking about what he had just told them.

(Some of those stones were longer than a school bus. Nobody could picture one of them falling.)

But Jesus had said that every one of them would be thrown down.

When he sat down on the Mount of Olives across from the temple, they crowded close. "When will this happen? And how will we know you are coming back?"

So Jesus told them about the last day.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory," he said, "with all the angels around him, he will sit on his shining throne. Every nation will be gathered in front of him. And he will separate them, the way a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats."

(In that country sheep and goats grazed in one munching, bleating flock. From the next hill they looked almost alike. But the shepherd knew every one, even the goat that kept chewing his sleeve.)

"He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you whom my Father has blessed! Take the kingdom made ready for you since the world began. I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. I had no clothes, and you dressed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison, and you came to see me.'"

The ones on his right will blink. "Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or in prison?"

(They are quite sure they would remember visiting a king in jail.)

"And the King will answer, 'Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"

Then the King will turn to those on his left. "Go away from me. I was hungry and thirsty, a stranger, cold with no clothes, sick and in prison, and you did nothing for me."

They will be just as surprised. "Lord, when did we see YOU hungry, and not help?" (If they had known it was the King, they would have raced each other to bring him dinner.)

"Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

Jesus said it plainly. Those on the left will go away to be punished forever, into the fire God made for the devil and his angels. Those on the right will go into life that never ends.

His friends looked across at the temple, gold in the late sun, and pictured a King far away on a throne of light. Not one of them looked at the man beside them with road dust on his feet.

In two days, Jesus told them, he would be handed over to be nailed to a cross. Before the week was out, that is what happened. Soldiers tied his hands like a prisoner's and took his clothes, and on the cross he said, "I am thirsty." The King in his story had not been pretending. He knew those places from the inside, and he went into them on purpose.

That is the kind of King Jesus is: on the throne of glory, and at the back of the line for bread. When he comes back shining, the ones on his right will look up at his face and know they have seen it before, at the door, by the sickbed, behind the bars.