Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise

Well, here we are at the foot of the cross.  We’ve taken a long walk up the hill of the Lenten season, and now we are where we never want to be – witnessing once again the death of our Lord. I don’t know why I dread this day. I love this entire season, culminating for me in the most meaningful service of the year, Maundy Thursday, which we celebrated last night. Every step of that journey is precious to me.

But today – today is a hard day. It’s never an easy day. As a child I would go every year to a community-wide 7 Last Words Service. My father would always have one of the words to preach on, like I do today. In those days, however, the seven preachers would all be sitting up in the chancel together, so our family would have to be there for all seven sermons. There was none of this “You can leave during the chimes or stay for the next Word” stuff we have in our bulletins today. No, we’d be there the whole time, with nothing but a PB&J beforehand and nothing but the occasional fuzzy mint from the bottom of Mom’s purse to break the monotony. And it was never sunny, even in South Florida. It was always a gloomy day.

A gloomy day. I guess that seems silly now. Because if anyone had a gloomy day on Good Friday, it was Jesus. Tried in a mock court. Scourged. Crowned with thorns. Beaten. Dragged his own cross up the hill, until he couldn’t do it anymore. Nailed. Crucified. Mocked and harassed some more, so he couldn’t even die without hearing the taunts and the jeers. “You saved all these others, but yourself you cannot save.” “Behold, King of the Jews, save yourself!”

That’s what is ringing in our ears now as we stand at the foot of the cross. We heard weeping and mourning from the followers, the disciples, and the family. We hear taunts and jeers from the crowd. We hear the thieves. And we hear the words of Jesus.

The Seven Last Words of Jesus are a compilation of all the gospels. No one gospel writer records them all. Those words which do appear in more than one gospel vary slightly. In our story, the ones Luke calls “criminals” are known elsewhere as “robbers,” “thieves,” and for John, just as “the others.” We don’t know much about them, of course. We know only that they were crucified for what they did, not for who they were, like Jesus. Some traditions suggest they were a team of thieves who worked together. Some have wondered if they could have been brothers. But none of this we know for sure. All we know is what they tell us about themselves. But that is a lot.

We know that they are suffering.  In our attention to all that happened to Jesus, we sometimes miss this fact. Crucifixion was a horrible death.[1] When the cross was raised with the person on it, the weight of one’s body often immediately dislocated the shoulders and wrists. Over time, the pressure of the downward pull of the body would begin to compress the chest. Death was usually an agonizingly slow suffocation, sometimes hastened by a spearing (as in Jesus’ case). It was rare for people to be crucified without having been severely beaten first, so even though it doesn’t appear in the gospels, we can imagine that our two criminals suffered beatings before being hoisted up on their crosses as well.

In the midst of their suffering, two very different responses emerge. That’s often the way, isn’t it? The time of trial reveals us as who we really are. “Broken glass shines brightest[2],” Leonard Bernstein once wrote. and in our story, that’s halfway true. One voice echoes the crowd in mocking Jesus, calling for him to save all three of them. This temptation as told by Luke, ever the storyteller, echoes the temptation by Satan in the wilderness, telling Jesus to throw himself down from the walls of the city. But this temptation isn’t answered by Jesus. It is answered by the second voice, the other criminal, who rebukes the first and then asks Jesus to “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

This in itself is remarkable. “When you come into your kingdom” implies that this person has some idea who Jesus is. Maybe he was in the crowds at some point, listening. Maybe he found the crowds a tempting environment for thieving activity – sort of a first-century pickpocket. Maybe he picked up a glimmer of knowledge and understanding that way. We don’t know how, but we do know that he knew who Jesus was, and he believed. Contrary to his companion, who wanted escape, this man wants forgiveness.[3]

And Jesus’ response is even more remarkable. “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

“Today.” Not just forgiveness, but salvation. Immediate salvation.

“You will be with me.”   Inclusion into the family of God, because of his belief. Salvation that is personal as well as immediate.

“In Paradise.”  In paradise. Now I don’t know what this thief thought that would mean. Maybe at that moment, just the cessation of pain would have seemed like paradise. But for me, it has always seemed that the words “in paradise” were a little redundant. Because after “today, you will be with me,” the reality of paradise is assumed. Paradise is the endless presence of Christ.

Which is the promise that comes to us as well. It is our journey, and our journey’s end. The endless presence of Christ is something that we are allowed, in our humanness, to glimpse from time to time. Resting in Christ is our life’s goal. So the promise, made to the criminal, includes us as well. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  It’s the word that can break through a haze of pain, or a fog of inattention, to remind us of the home we were made to inhabit. May it be so for you, and for me, this day.