The Seven Last Words of Jesus:
“This day, you will be with me in Paradise”
by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
March 16, 2014
Genesis 12: 1-4
Luke 23: 32-43
“The criminal begs Jesus for remembrance in the unknown future that awaits them all. The crucified jesus, the one soon to die on the gibbet of infamy, replies to this criminal, ‘Believe me, today you shall be with me in Paradise.’ As Ambrose put it centuries later, ‘More abundant is the favor shown than the request made.’”—Joseph Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV
It’s the most compelling and memorable of the Taize songs we sing: “Jesus, remember me/ when you come into your kingdom.” It’s compelling because, quite simply, it’s what you and I want. The thief on the cross is speaking for us. He represents all of us. But at the same time, he’s not like us at all. Luke, writing to a Roman audience, puts these words in the mouth of the lowest of the low. At bare minimum, the thief is a lawbreaker of the worst sort, and Rome was a law-and-order state. The average Roman would assume, as we generally do, that someone who’s broken the law doesn’t deserve much leniency.
But this guy may have been more than a ‘Thief.” He may have been a “bandit,” a word that meant from a Roman perspective “religious terrorist.” He may have been one of the members of the raiding party of Barabbas, the man who was released in order that Jesus could be executed. Barabbas and his fellow terrorists would have hid in the Asphaltine Hills and attacked travellers or even Roman army cohorts in the name of God, claiming that they were serving God by attacking the imperial occupying force. Now, how would their fellow Jews have viewed them? Probably much the way that civilian Syrians view the Syrian Free Army. At first they might have celebrated them—but quickly, when they realized that they could be as much targets as the Romans, they might have changed their opinions. The best you could say of the Jewish view of such folks is, they were ambivalent.
The point is, this guy was actually not like you and me. He was not like the Roman audience to whom Luke tells this story that is unique to the Gospel. He’s a lawbreaker, likely a terrorist, thief, and murderer.
But he’s also the one to whom Jesus says, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.”
In many ways this story encapsulates the whole theology of the Reformation, from which we Presbyterians sprang in the Sixteenth Century. In this story we find the two key beliefs of the Reformation perfectly contrasted. On the one hand, we have sin, and sin in its most raw form—a criminal, who himself admits he is rightly dying for his crimes—a terrorist, from a modern perspective, who likely preyed on his own people, and undermined the legal authority in the name of God—a marauder, who stole freely from his own people and claimed he was doing it for their sakes. This was a man both legally and morally beneath contempt. Importantly, he was not like most of us, who have likely never gotten in trouble with the law, and if so only, for minor offenses; who respect authority; who make sure we don’t make waves. We don’t want to have anything to do with this man, this sinner.
And yet, he’s the one who receives grace.
And what is grace? It’s the most important thing we Reformation Christians hang our hats on. Grace is the unearned favor of God—let me repeat, it is the unearned favor of God. Grace is not Jesus smiling on you for a job well done. Quite the opposite. Grace is Jesus smiling on you despite the fact that you are a hopeless loser. Furthermore, grace is more than we would ever ask or imagine from God. The ancient church father Ambrose noted that all that the thief asked for was that Jesus remember him when He returns as King. Instead he received an instantaneous promise beyond his wildest imaginings, as Ambrose says: “More abundant is the favor shown than the request made.” Grace is not just more than we deserve—it is always a favor granted us by God that is far more abundant than all that we could ask or wish.
But the key to that grace lies in what it is that the thief recognizes in Jesus—he recognizes that Jesus is Lord. “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” The thief gets it. This guy being crucified next to him, under the same sentence of condemnation as him, is the God-appointed Lord of the Universe. Does the thief understand that Jesus is the Son of God? Can he enumerate the main points of Trinitarian belief? HAS HE BEEN BAPTIZED??? NO!!!!! But he gets it—Jesus is Lord, and Jesus’ Kingdom is inevitable.
At the heart of our faith as Christians lies the central belief that Jesus is Lord, that He is sovereign ruler, that His Kingdom is what we live for, and that the establishment of the Kingdom of God, with Jesus as the ruler of the world, is what will heal the world. I honestly think this concept of kingship, of sovereignty, is extremely alien to us today because we don’t have a king, we have a president. Consequently, we talk about “choosing” Jesus the same way we talk about electing a president, and sometimes think it means that Jesus needs to respond to our demands the way we expect our congress people to react to poll numbers. But in the ancient world, it was understood that your ruler was your lifeblood—the source of everything good—the person who held your future in the palm of his or her hand—the person you did not say no to. We find that concept alien and alienating today. That’s not what we want from Jesus, and if that’s the way Jesus is, maybe we don’t need him!
So it’s good to remember the point at which the nameless thief meets The Name Above All Names. They meet on the cross. The thief at his most desperate meets Jesus, one with him, experiencing the same desperation and need. When the thief is weakest and suffering, Jesus meets him in the same state of weakness and suffering. And it is at this point that Jesus is proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be the sovereign ruler of the universe. Because He isn’t a ruler high above us, superior to us, demanding all from us and nothing of Himself. He is a ruler who willingly gives Himself for us. Once again the favor given far exceeds any expectation we could hope or have.
If it is true, that whether we like it or not, Jesus is the true sovereign ruler of the world, then there’s something we need to know about Him. First, we need to know, does he respect us for who we are? And second, we need to know if He is fully trustworthy and fully good. There’s no easy way to answer either of those questions. Any answer seems facile. Ultimately the only answer we get is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He was God in human form. He lived like one of us and died liked the least of us. Throughout His ministry He met people where they were and showed compassion to the weak, challenged the mighty, and expected responsibility even of the least of these. He, God on earth, died a miserable, painful, desperate death for us. Empathy and love for the human condition, for you and me and struggles and joys, poured out of every fiber of his being, out of the sweat on His body and the blood from His wounds.
And there, at His most desperate moment, He turned to the thief on the cross and said, “Believe me, this day you will be with me in Paradise.”
All I can say is, I certainly HOPE that man is the sovereign Lord of the world. I’d sure vote for Him.