Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel is the ultimate depiction of divine judgement, showing Christ as the final judge who separates the righteous from the condemned based on their deeds. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, however, does not depict “due process” as a formal, procedural trial. Instead, it portrays the finality of divine justice, where the time for advocacy or legal maneuvering has ended. In the painting, Mary is shown in a pose of resignation, suggesting that the period for pleading or mercy has passed. Christ is depicted as a powerful, central figure who pronounces individual verdicts through a large rotary movement and decisive hand gestures. There is no deliberation or defense presented within the scene. By omitting a courtroom scene, Michelangelo designed the fresco to suggest that our current life serves as the “trial” before the final judgment.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that Nicodemus emerges as a defender of Jesus. Nicodemus asks the Pharisees why they condemn Jesus without first hearing from him and coming to know what Jesus does. This action is quite surprising because Nicodemus is a Pharisee who suggests that no judgment can be pronounced against Jesus unless His words are first heard and His works are recognized. This action is unprecedented because no legal precepts in the Old Testament or in rabbinic Judaism demand that the accused be heard and that the accuser come to know what the accused does. But while Nicodemus appears to be a defender of Jesus and enunciates a new understanding of law by introducing due process, his actions were merely a legal maneuver. Nicodemus merely raises questions about the correctness of the legal procedure used against Jesus. Nevertheless, Nicodemus does not raise the Messianic question as he does not want to challenge Jewish leaders and Pharisees about the substance of their judgment against Jesus. Nicodemus is just trying to avoid the more substantive issue by raising procedural ones. But he did not want to challenge the Jews who rejected any messianic status of Jesus. Nicodemus did not dare to challenge the Jews who cited scripture to claim that no prophet had come from Galilee. Nicodemus does not dare to say that the fact of the matter is that Jesus is not just a prophet, and that He is not from Galilee, because He is the Son of God who comes from the Father.