"the goats on his left"

Christ separating the sheep from the goats, St. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, before 526 AD.

For those faithful readers of this blog who might think that my Advent reflections this year are focusing too heavily upon the Last Judgment, I offer a bit of humor. It revolves around the justness of the Lord's choice of goats to represent the reprobate at the End of Days.

This might seem unfair toward goats to many of you. But it seems spot on to me. You see, I have a history with goats. Well, one goat in particular--Goldie. When I was a boy, my father's friend Earl owned goats. I enjoyed petting the goats in their pen when we went to visit Earl in the country. On one rather lengthy visit I discovered that one of the nanny goats had given birth to a kid a few months before. The kid's name was Goldie, due to her color, of course. Well, I was delighted and spent most of the day playing with Goldie. I soon discovered that Goldie liked to butt me with her head. I playfully reciprocated, getting down on all fours and butting heads with the young goat. (This seemed quite sensible to me as a ten year old.) I had a blast. We visited Earl several more times in the next few weeks, and each time I would butt heads with Goldie the kid.

Then almost a year passed before we went back out to see Earl. When I finally visited him and his goats again, I discovered that Goldie was now fully grown. I petted her, but she seemed not particularly interested in me anymore. She had put away the things of childhood, I thought. But then I bent over to pick up something out of a manger to try to feed her. When she saw me bending over, something must have clicked in her brain. She made a sudden and violent charge at me and smashed her head into mine. I went flying, naturally, and landed flat on my back! I was out cold for almost a minute!

So there you have it. Goats standing in for the wicked? I believe it! "Depart from me!"