“’Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise’”
Scriptures:
Psalm 22:25-31
Luke 23:32-43
Those of your who were here last year for Lent may recall that I used the last four Sundays of Lent for a series on the familiar Seven Last Words of Christ as a guide for our Lenten journey together. Of course, since we only had four weeks we could only do four of them, leaving the other three to do at another time. Well, guess what? It’s another time. Fortuitously, we now have three weeks to go before Palm Sunday – just the right amount of time to pick up on the three Words we didn’t get to last year. You may recall that my thought in preaching about each of these seven words (well, actually, they’re really phrases, as you know) is both to identify Christ’s legacy to us and to help us describe the basic human condition. Through these Seven Last Words Christ was able to identify himself with our everyday lives in a meaningful and unforgettable way. Let me lead you through a brief refresher course in what all of The Seven Last Words of Christ are. This is one minister’s interpretation, Ben H. Swett from Bethany Christian Church, using the traditional order and the traditional language:
1) "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do." (Luke 23:34)
Soldiers have just driven nails through his hands and feet and hoisted him up
by those nails. He does not fear those who kill his body; he pities them and
prays for them. If they knew how much this hurts, they could not do it to
anyone. They are unwitting instruments of the higher purpose that brings him
here.
2) "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?" (Matthew 27:46)
But physical torment takes its toll. He suddenly discovers that he cannot hear
the still, small voice; he has lost his two-way communication with God. His
lifeline is not working, so he must face the narrow gate of death alone.
3) He said to his mother, "Woman, behold your
son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" (John
19:26-27)
Not quite
alone. He looks down. Which hurts worse: the pain of being crucified, or the
pain of a mother watching her son be crucified, or the pain of a boy whose
beloved teacher hangs bleeding before his eyes? He understands their pain in
the midst of his own, and tells them to care for each other.
4) "I thirst!" (John 19:28)
Time passes slowly. His spring of living water runs dry. He reaches the end
of his strength. This is the moment the Tempter has been waiting for: through
the voices of cynical men, Satan tries again, as he did in the wilderness:
"If you are the Christ, prove it! Save yourself and impress the
people."
5) "Truly, I say to you, today you will be
with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43)
But a dying thief says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
What the cynical voices suggest is not the way to prove he is the Christ. His
kingdom is not of this world. He ignores them and reassures the thief.
6) "It is finished!" (John 19:30)
He has defeated the Tempter again. Despite the agony, he has rejected
temptation and cared for those around him. His temporary duty on earth is
complete. He has shown the way God wants us to live. He has demonstrated the
fact that faith and hope and love cannot be destroyed by anything we can say or
do.
7) "Father, into thy hands I commit my
spirit." (Luke 23:46)
Like a trusting child, he turns to the Father and takes the next step. He has
bound himself by love, to both God and the human race. Soon he will begin his
long-term ministry by demonstrating the fact that human beings survive physical
death. Then he will continue to draw to himself, and thus to heaven, everyone
he can ... for as long as it takes ... until whosoever will has come.
So, today we’ll pick up with the fifth of these Words: "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." And then over the next two weeks we’ll look at "It is finished!" and "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
It should be no secret to any of you by now that I’m a film buff and have been one pretty much my whole life. For many years one of my sidebar roles was writing film reviews for many different publications – mostly religious ones. (I used to say that if I could have any job in the world it would be chief film critic for the New York Times.) My very first film review, in November, 1962, for the International Journal of Religious Education, was of the movie Barabbas, starring Anthony Quinn, and based on the slim novel by Par Lagerkvist. Now, Barabbas is not the thief who is there on the cross next to Jesus and to whom Jesus says, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” but rather, as you know, he is the thief who is pardoned instead of Jesus and set free. The Bible doesn’t give us the names of the two men on either side of Jesus, which is too bad – we’d like to be able to personify them so as to better feel their pain and experience what is happening to them.
But we do know Barabbas, and it’s easy to conjecture about what happens to him after the crucifixion of Jesus, as this book and movie do. Barabbas and the thief to whom Jesus speaks have a lot in common, and both of their reactions to what is happening in the crucifixion are instructive for us. In the movie Barabbas first revels in his freedom – he’s gotten away with something. But then he begins to wonder: why is he free? what is God’s purpose for him? At one point he rather mysteriously comes to believe that he cannot die (supposedly, because according to Roman law a man released to the crowd cannot be given a capital sentence). Then, his physical and mental wanderings take him into the hell-like darkness of sulphur mines, which is only relieved when he helps a Christian who had hated him. Barabbas has questions which sound strangely contemporary: “Jesus of Nazareth was killed for me. Why me?” “Which way shall I go?” “Why can’t God make himself plain?” Barabbas is a man whose faith is constantly tested, and it’s not clear in this book or movie whether he finally gives himself up to the darkness or the light. Yet, he is a man with a burning human soul, whose fire is not driven out even by the sulphur mines – a man to whom Peter can declare, “You are the nearest to Christ because you are the farthest away.”
This declaration of Peter’s brings us back to the thief next to Jesus on the hill of Golgotha. (Actually, the NRSV refers to him as a “criminal”, which is an improvement on the King James’ “malefactor”, but somehow down through the centuries tradition seems to have made him a thief.) He, too, comes near to the Christ even though it would seem that everything in his life up to that point would have kept him far away. This man, in essence, goes through the whole arc of Barabbas’s life journey in the few brief moments we meet him there on that hill. He has skirted the law and tried to get away with his criminality. He knows the pain of being nailed to a cross. He becomes aware of his own inadequacy and unworthiness. But now he is about to receive one of the greatest of God’s promises.
I know that it’s hard for any one of us to identify with a man like this. He represents a rather extreme case of less-than-ideal humanity – a hardened criminal. If we knew more about his back-story – oh, say, possibly poverty, oppressive parents, lack of opportunities, inability to hold a job – we might be a bit more sympathetic, but nevertheless he has made choices in his life that have led him to this hill, and he needs to be responsible for those choices.
But maybe there are some ways in which we are not so different from this man. The kind of mind-set that has led him to Golgotha is largely one of “how much can I get away with?” I think that this is almost an in-born human trait which we have to fight most of our lives to move away from. It certainly is there when we are children, but it becomes more difficult to deal with as we enter adulthood with the related need to accept responsibility. Cartoonist Bil Keane in his strip The Family Circus introduced an invisible gremlin back in the 1970s named "Not Me", who would watch while the children try to shift blame for a misdeed with a "not me". Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" and "Nobody" were introduced in later years. It’s cute to look at little children all trying to move blame to someone else with their chorused “not me’s”, but it gets less amusing when this translates into adult behavior. I was watching an old “Law and Order” episode this past week while on the treadmill at the gym which concerned a psychopathic killer who had become a brilliant lawyer while in prison and who was now using and manipulating the law in order to get his conviction overturned, much to the frustration of District Attorney Jack McCoy. Using the law to circumvent your own wrong-doing is the very epitome of “not me” at the adult level.
The other criminal on the cross manifests something of this attitude, mocking Jesus by saying: “’Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’” In other words, “it doesn’t matter how unworthy we may be, Jesus, if you’ve got the power to get us down off of these crosses, use it!” It’s not unlike the temptation Jesus experienced in the wilderness when the tempter tried to get Jesus to use his divine power to turn stone into bread or to rule the world. But Jesus’ power – that is, his authority – comes from his acceptance of the cross, not from seeking to be saved from it. This criminal – like the one in the “Law and Order” episode – wants to find an “out” – wants to circumvent responsibility for what he has done.
But the first criminal “gets it”. “’Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’” In these brief two sentences this man is expressing a new-found role for God in his life, remorse for past actions, and compassion – a generosity of spirit – toward someone whom he perceives to be an innocent. In response to what this man is now expressing, Jesus quietly proclaims, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Wait a minute. Isn’t this a bit troubling? Is Jesus here saying only if you repent and have remorse and only if you show compassion toward others will I take you into Paradise with me? What about the other criminal? Has Jesus completely turned away from him and his sneering attitude?
Twenty-one centuries of Christian tradition have taught us that we cannot accept the simplistic conclusion that repentance and compassion and following Jesus as our Savior are what make us acceptable in God’s sight. Evaluating our lives and accepting responsibility for when we have acted poorly or not acted when we should have is important. Living a life that focuses with compassion on those around us is important. Seeking a life that can be lived out of the knowledge of what Jesus has done for us is important. But they are not the basis for God’s love for us! That love is given unconditionally because God is a grace-filled God. The United Church of Christ likes its churches to practice “extravagant hospitality” and extend an “extravagant welcome” to all people, because theologically we believe that God gives to us out of an “extravagant self-giving love”. Our welcome to others is a feature of God’s eternal dance of love.
Although the Bible does not mention the second criminal again, we have to believe that Jesus did not write him off as unsalvageable. Story after story out of our traditions speak of those who find the love of God late in life. Jesus never gives up on anyone. That’s what happens to Barabbas, at least in the movie and book I spoke about before. His experience of Jesus, quite literally, dying for him ultimately changes him. It changes the criminal on one side of Jesus. Quite possibly it will change the other criminal, too.
God’s love extends everywhere. The Psalmist proclaims this in the passage we heard read today: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.” The Psalmist goes on: “Future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn…..” The key to this passage is how universal this vision is. Paradise is not a closed country club. Paradise is the result of God’s extravagant self-love on behalf of all of us – even the most unlovable.
“Truly, I tell you…” – this is a true and accurate statement and you can bet your life on it – “…today…” – right now, this very minute – “…you…” and you, and you, and you, and you – “…will be with me in Paradise.” It is a done deed.
Amen.
Next week we’ll look at the sixth Last Word: “It is finished”. Here’s a hint – it’s not about hardwood floors.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, UCC
Las Vegas, NV
March 11, 2007