Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
Through earth's sepulchres it ringeth;
All before the throne it bringeth.1
A Pendulum Swing
There is an opinion that lives in our day that the Christianity of antiquity was overly concerned about judgment and hell. Educators, both sacred and secular, cast a scornful eye toward a caricature of some Middle Ages believer: a man worn out by terror of the lake of fire and exhausted from weeks of self-flagellation. While not explicitly spoken, the sentiment is that we have somehow graduated from the childish idea of divine judgment. If you ever were unsettled by the possibility of an eternal judgment, you can be sure that our 21st century educators will mock that idea right into the recesses of your mind, into a dark cave where they think that the idea originated, inspired by the cast shadows from a fire burning within.
And these mockers are right about associating fire with judgment. Although they are wrong about the ‘why.’ They say that the materialistic phenomenon called ‘fire’ inspired the developing humanoid to invent a fiery judgment. They see the connections between fire in a cave and the idea of the fire of hell, and they presume that they connect the dots correctly. But there is another way to connect those dots. The truth is that the Creator of all things, both of fire and of man, has made each for His purposes. The connection is not that man saw fire and invented god and hell; man saw fire, and remembered the Maker of man and fire.2
But this sentiment, that the man of antiquity was foolish for being concerned with eternal judgment, is one that sadly finds its way among those who claim to belong to Jesus Christ. We often sit in judgment on our spiritual grandparents, and consider their tears and entreaties as trifling anxieties. Their “Kyrie, eleison!” was a heartfelt prayer, but to us it is simply a historical fact. We sip coffee with our feet up in art history classes as we pick apart Michaelangelo’s Last Judgment.
Some of our brothers in the Middle Ages may have emphasized the fear of God in a way that ignored various scriptural promises or troubled consciences that did not need to be troubled. They may have tempted some individuals to despair of salvation. Even if we concede that the man of the Middle Ages was tempted to despair, none can deny that the pendulum has swung in our day. We swerved to avoid hitting the bunny rabbit on the highway and we ended up in a ditch on the other side.
In our day, we find the devil is pushing a different sin: presumption. Thomas Aquinas talked about how there are two sins against the virtue of hope that are very different: one is despair, and the other is presumption. Both of these are sins against hope, and we often find ourselves in the latter by attempting to flee from the former.
Music, Sincerity, and the Last Judgement
Over the last few days, I have found myself mesmerized by a powerful hymn called Dies Irae. It is a Latin chant about the Final Judgement. It is a reverent prayer for mercy on that day, and an acknowledgment of its imminence. It is an intense and weighty topic, but it is set in beautiful Gregorian chant.3
So much of our modern Christian music is about feeling good: if you are in traffic and having a hard day, there’s always a station to cheer you up. But there is something powerful about music that does not settle for the function of making you feel better. There is something powerful about music that celebrates a heavenly and otherworldly truth. To set the Final Judgement to reverent music like this is to bestow adornments on the already perfect and beautiful oracles of God. King David made the law of God his song:
Thy statutes have been my songs In the house of my pilgrimage. (Psalm 119:54)
As the temptations of this life batter the soul, I find that a sober look at the Last Judgement is like medicine. He sent out His word and healed them (Psalm 107:20). Although counter-intuitive, I even find a joy in these meditations. There is a focusing effect they have on my mind. They throw a firey light back onto your entire life and drive out the shadows hiding in the corners. He will come to judge the living and the dead has been like a doctor’s defibulator paddles on my soul at various points in this Christian life, this life upon earth is a warfare (Job 7:1).
My generation is saturated in sarcasm. We are allergic to sincerity. We grew up on prank videos, iFunny memes, and much worse. We know our music is fake, and we don’t really care. Sincerity is a foreign language to GenZ, and only those who study to learn it can understand it or hope to begin to speak it. The psychology of all that is above my pay grade, but I can speak as someone who has lived with it as my first language.
A sincere song about the Last Judgement is refreshing and invigorating. It is so real. It is super-real. Supernatural: this is the real that the younger generation is always chasing in the wrong places. We, who are not native speakers of sincerity, can learn it by immersion. The Spirit of God can turn our scoffing into O God, have mercy on me, a sinner! (Luke 18:13).
But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)
I created this PDF with the lyrics of Dies Irae and a literal translation. I will also link two powerful recordings of this hymn.
Earth and Sky Fled Away
When we hear the Word of God, there are many levels at which we should interact with it. One is to draw out the meaning of the words and to put them into practice. This is crucial for church leaders and laymen alike. Good exegisis is not optional. Study bibles, commentaries, etc. are all helpful.
But sometimes we rush so quickly to the explaining that we do not just let the words hit us. This is especially true in our day, when making people uncomfortable about being wrong with God is considered worse than actually being wrong with God. Dies Irae and other songs of that nature are helpful because they slow us down to let the full weight of God’s pronouncements hit us before we can rush to explain away the plain meaning.
David could make the law of God his songs. He could hear the command of God, and make it an almost mystical experience, best expressed in psalmody rather than in essays. The Sacred Scriptures: law, prophets, gospels, and epistles, are to be both sung and studied. Sometimes those songs will make us laugh. Sometimes they will cause us to weep.
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. (Revelation 20:11)
The above verse from the Revelation of St. John has impacted me at this aforementioned level. When I read this verse, I do not find myself ready to inspect it: it inspects me.4 Before rushing to questions of the details of this heavenly scene, let us stand beside John as he sees this. Could he even open his mouth with a question? Could he work up the courage to ask the Ancient of Days, from Whom, we read, earth and sky fled away, a question?
When the great white throne is set, and the Judge of all the earth takes His seat, heaven and earth themselves will not be able to endure the sight.
Death is struck, and nature quaking,
All creation is awaking,
To its Judge an answer making.5
On that Day, He will ask, and we will have to answer.
But today, while it is called today, He says:
Call to me and I will answer you (Jeremiah 33:3).
Come, Lord Jesus.
Dies Irae, third verse. From a loose equivalence translation, perserving the poetic effect of AAA, BBB, CCC, etc. Same with footnote 5.
Read Chesterton’s chapter The Man in the Cave in The Everlasting Man for more on this idea.
There are other settings of the Dies Irae text, like a famous Requiem from Mozart. In this post I refer to the Gregorian Chant melody.
Hebrews 4:12
Dies Irae, fourth verse.
A modern-day version of Dies Irae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhlybE5RmKo
I admit, my first introduction to this was when it was used in Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", which in large part is why that remains my all-time favorite film.