Do you know what God wears on His throne? 

by Rev. Thomas Coughlin

Have you ever visited a mega bookstore? I saw one at a nearby shopping Mall one day and it took me nearly two hours to look around and check out all the books on the shelves. I could not believe the numbers of books that were written by so many people.

After browsing around, I wondered to myself if there was any way I could spend the rest of my life in reading ALL of these books that were sitting on the shelves. Most of the books I saw appeared to be interesting, if not intriguing.

Someone told me that there are over hundreds, if not thousands, of authors here in USA who are writing many books and novels every day. I just could not imagine the sheer volume and variety of ideas and worldviews that are constantly produced by so many authors and first-time writers. Actually, no one can fully grasp the height and depth of various views and opinions many authors may present through their writings, for after all, our minds are finite and can only contain a fraction of what comes through our minds.

When I came home in the evening in time for our vespers, I found a bible on my seat. Someone must have inadvertently left it on my seat, but nevertheless, I opened it up and came to a particular passage in St. John’s Gospel which says: “Now, there are so many other things that Jesus did. If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books that would be written.” John 21:25

How true! This is an interesting analogy St. John had come up in his writings. It seems as if St. John had a prophetic vision of our today’s mega bookstores with so many different books. If every record of Jesus’ activities were written, it would have filled the whole bookstore, if not just one.

From the Gospel of St. John, we learn from his writings that Jesus had performed so many miracles and good deeds that no books or libraries could record them all. However, St. John wanted to tell us something else more important. He may want to tell us that no books in the world could contain an important message of God’s infinite love for us. God’s love is so immense that nothing in our world, both books and video can fully contain and explain God’s love for us. This may explain why St. John tried to explain that no books in the world could fully summarize the grace of God’s presence in the world in the flesh of Jesus Christ.

If I had a vision of meeting Jesus in person in Heaven, let me imagine this scenario. I saw Jesus sitting on this throne and I noticed that he was wearing a coat over his robe. At first, the sight of Jesus wearing a coat over his beautiful white robe puzzled me. I ask Him why was he wearing a coat while sitting on the throne. I asked him if it was chilly for him wearing only His dazzling white robe on the throne.

He explained to me that in accordance with the holy Psalms, God is clothed in justice. People wear certain clothing to indicate their status: nurses wearing white uniform; airline pilots in aviation suits, judges in judicial robes etc. Jesus explained furthermore that when He sat on the throne as a judge for the living and the dead, He felt that being clothed in justice left Him feeling cold. The cold wind of revenge, retribution and exacting vengeance associated with judgment left Him feeling nauseated and troubled, for it was not becoming on Him.

In order to feel warm and comfortable in His role as judge and mediator, Jesus put on His coat of Mercy and Compassion. As a result, Jesus experienced a profound sense of peace, forgiveness and hopefulness of God’s eternal love for all people. The cold chill of judgment thaws out to the eternal radiance of God’s love and reconciliation.

This is only a dream, but the message is true. God wears a robe of justice but also wears a coat of mercy and compassion. As we explore the true nature of God, we learn from the Scriptures, both in the Old and New Testaments that the mercy of God is everlasting and His relationship with us is eternal, never temporal or just for a moment in time and space.

St. Paul once wrote that on account of our sins, we fall short of the glory of God. However, God comes to us, not because He needs to do this. He comes to us because of the motivating factor of the nature of His personality. God is all merciful and loving as the scriptures frequently testify to this. He could not “lock” Himself in perpetual anger or disgust by our sinfulness. In essence, God seeks us solely out of His genuine love and concern for us.

Since we can never stand justified in the presence of God, we appeal to mercy of God as the only recourse. Therefore we “visualize” God wearing a robe of justice and a coat of mercy and compassion. When God wears His robe of justice and cloak of mercy, we can approach Him.

How do we know about this? Simply, read the parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus invented this beautiful story of a Prodigal Son as if he was writing a novel to communicate to us about God being a loving Father whose compassion and forgiveness that could never be adequately described. If Jesus’ actions and deeds were to be described in every detail, we will need hundreds of libraries to record them. There is a lot more to than meets the eye.

Jesus was never a writer. He left that to the Evangelists and most especially to one of His beloved Apostles, St. Paul, to relate more deeply about God’s love and compassion with stories and inspired words of wisdom and parables. The Evangelists, on other hands, probably saw and heard many of them and discovered that they could not write them all down, for nothing can fully contain the height and depth of God’s love and compassion by the strokes of their pens or quill feathers.

In the light of their writings, we ask ourselves what can we learn from these stories. Indeed, there is one that prominently stands out for us to do likewise, today and everyday: “Be compassionate as your Heavenly Father is compassionate.” We must be compassionate towards all. We need to wear the coat of mercy and compassion so that we may resemble the goodness of Christ in our world today.