"Last Words From the Cross" (part 2)

"Last Words From The Cross" (part 2)
Luke 23:39-43


I think I’ve mentioned before that I come up with some odd questions when I’m looking at a story from the Bible.  Like this scene.  The men, including Jesus, have been nailed to their crosses when still laying on the ground.  Then the crosses are hoisted up and lowered with a thud into pre-dug holes.  It’s an added part of the torture of crucifixion, to lower the cross sharply and brusquely into the hole, thereby forcing all your hanging body weight against the spikes in your wrists and ankles.

At that point, you know for sure you are going to die.  Some time in the next 24 to 48 hours you will be dead.  No way out.  Not many of us know when or how we’re going to die.  These three did, Jesus and the two criminals on each side.  We have this nagging thought, a thought that we push as far back into some cave in our minds, that we are all going to die.  But, on the cross, that thought comes screaming out of that cave, and stares the crucified one in the face with an unswerving gaze.

So the question that came to mind as I was pondering this crucifixion scene was, If you and another person were going into a situation in which you knew that both of you would probably die, who would you want that other person to be?  Who would you want to face death with, if such a thing were to happen?  I thought of the few people in the nuclear reactors in Japan, who this week, stayed behind in some effort to keep a major meltdown from happening.  All of them would be subjected to high levels of radiation.  I heard one report that they probably won’t live past a month, because of how much radiation their bodies would absorb.  As they looked around at each other, are these the ones they would normally choose to face death with?

I know it’s an odd question.  But I hope you’re giving it some thought right now.  It’s an odd question, because like I said a moment ago, no one knows what the circumstances of their deaths are going to be.

When I was at a church in Nebraska, a high school girl was struck by a truck while she was driving to school one morning.  She was near death.  I was part of the Crisis Team that went into the school that morning to be available to talk with students about what they were feeling.  In one group that I talked to, the conversation turned towards ways the kids would NOT want to die.  Most of the kids I talked to said the worst would be to die alone.  They didn’t want to die alone.

Crucifixion is just one of the many dreadful ways to die.  But I think for many of us, the thought of having to face death without someone at our side is a depressing image.

When I was in eighth grade, our homeroom studies teacher loved the author Charles Dickens.  So we got a huge dose of Charles Dickens that year.  One of the books we read was Tale of Two Cities.  It’s a novel about the craziness that overtook France during the French Revolution.

At the end of Dickens’ book, one of the main characters, Sydney Carton, secretly traded places with a friend of his who was locked in the Bastille.  They exchanged clothes, and his friend walked out of the prison wearing Carton’s clothes.  Carton remained behind in his friends prison garb to await execution.  It’s one of the great self-sacrificial scenes in all of fictional literature.

As Sydney Carton was being wheeled out to the guillotine in a cart with other prisoners, he caught the eye of a little girl.  She was going to suffer the same fate as he that day.  She had seen him earlier and was drawn to the gentleness and courage in his face.

She moved over next to him in the cart.  “If I may ride next to you, will you let me hold on to your hand?” she asked Carton as they made their last, dread journey.  She didn’t want to face the last ride by herself.  So when they rode together to the executioner, her hand was in his.  When they reached the place where the guillotine towered to the clouds, the blade’s edge reflecting off the sun, there was no fear at all in her eyes.  She gazed into Carton’s quiet, composed face and said, “I think you were sent to me by Heaven.”

What a scary vision it is to know that in a short while, by the end of the day, your earthly life would be no more.  But what a gift it would be to have someone, as if they were “sent by Heaven” to share those last moments with.  To be with someone who, by their quiet encouragement, makes those last moments livable.

On Golgotha that day, what a privilege those two criminals had, as they climbed the hill with their crosses, to see another, who would share their same fate.  What a comfort to look into his quiet, composed face and see there the very presence of Heaven.  Jesus is able to redeem even the moment of death.  At least one of the criminals recognized that.

The cross represents not only the final moment of life, but also all the bad moments of life that we experience.  The cross represents all the times we go through, but when we get to those times we find out we’re not alone; Christ is there, voluntarily going through what we are going through.  Christ is there to let us know we are not alone, to bring encouragement in a most scary experience.

Jesus is the one lying the hospital bed next to you, having undergone the same scary procedure or operation you are now facing.  Jesus is the one sitting in the recliner near you with an IV of chemo in his arm, at the oncologists clinic, smiling encouragement to you.  Jesus is the one sitting across from you at the Divorce Recovery Support Group.  Jesus is the other patient in the Emergency Room with similar bruises or molestations or marks of abuse as your own.  Jesus is the one standing next to you as you both look out the window and see the tsunami coming, higher than your house, speeding like a derailed freight train of debris.

So many ask, “Does Jesus know what I’m going through?”  The cross, and the conversation with two thieves, is the answer to that question.  The cross represents all the underserved atrocities, all the life-and-death situations, all the terrifying events we face in life.  Those events may have been inflicted upon us.  Or they may be a result of our own actions.  It doesn’t seem to matter which it is to Christ.  The cross represents how Jesus takes all those kinds of events we have to go through, and makes them his own, shares them with us.

At the place of crucifixion, two criminals being lifted up on crosses find there is a third person also being crucified.  He is being lifted up between them.  He is an unexpected friend on their day of humiliation--the day they would all three die--the day when no one was cheering for them.

In their common misery, the two criminals demonstrate they have some sensitivity as to who Jesus is.  One of the criminals mocks Jesus, missing the power of being with Jesus in the moment.  He is verbally abusive of Jesus, unrepentant, still scheming a way to get out of his predicament, in denial about the gravity of his situation as he thinks he can cheat death one more time.  Jesus could have been such a source of power and encouragement for him in that dark hour, but all the criminal could think to do was to turn and attack Jesus in their common pain.

The other criminal also had some spiritual sensitivity about Jesus.  It appears he maybe had some religious leanings his whole life, but never did anything about them.  He knew at some time he was going to have to deal with God, but he just kept putting God off.  Now, at the end, he could run no longer or no further.  He is in no denial about why he and the other criminal are hanging there on each side of Christ.  He knows he is getting what he deserves for a life spent badly.  He knows now is the time to turn and face God.

Not to God, but to the other criminal, he makes a confession of sin and a profession of faith:  “Have you no fear of God?  You’re getting the same as him.  We deserve this, but not him--he did nothing to deserve this.”  That was the criminal’s confession of sin.  That was his reflection that he had misspent his life and that he now realizes it could have been otherwise.  And had it been otherwise, he wouldn’t be hanging there on that cross.

Then came the profession of faith, when he finally turned to Jesus.  He stopped arguing with the other criminal and said to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”

What could Jesus have replied?  “Sorry, buddy, you don’t quite measure up?”  Or, “You are in last place of the great race of life; I’m sorry, but you’re eliminated!”  Or, “Why do you think you deserve to enter my kingdom along with all the other God-fearing people who lived religiously their whole life long?  Do you think you, at the last moment of your life, can worm your way in?”  Does Jesus say anything like that?  We might have.  But, no.  Jesus replied to the man, “I tell you, today you will join me in Paradise.”

Paradise is another term for the Garden of Eden.  It is the new Garden, unstained by sin.  It is the place where the Tree of Life grows.  It is the place where God will gather all believers.  Jesus, with powerful encouragement tells the criminal his faith has given him a place in Paradise.

What an act of grace, not only to be sharing the moment of death with Jesus Christ, but also to hear him say that Paradise awaits you.  Today!  Today; not some time in the future, but today.  You will be in Paradise, and you will enter with Jesus at your side.  Wow!  That’s who I want by my side when I die.

Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball.  As the first to break baseball’s “color barrier,” Robinson faced jeering crowds in every stadium.  While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he let a ground ball slip by him.  His own fans began to ridicule him with racial slurs.  He stood at second base, humiliated, as the fans continued their taunting.

Then the shortstop, PeeWee Reese came over, stood next to Robinson and put his arm around him in an act of encouragement.  The fans immediately went quiet.  Robinson later said that that arm around his shoulder that day saved his career.

Jesus, as best he could from the cross, put his arm of encouragement around the criminal on the terrible day of their deaths.  With his arm around the shoulder of his fellow crucified, Jesus quieted the crowds and the other criminal, and saved the man’s eternal life:  Today, you will be with me in Paradise.

These words of Jesus from the cross are words to us all when we are facing the worst that life has to throw at us, when we are facing the reality of our own sin and mortality.  Jesus’ words come to us not as a kick when we are down, or a slap in the face when we are already in tears.  His words come instead as deep encouragement, an arm around the shoulders, and as an affirmation that the best that God can give is yet to come.


Prayer
Forgive us, Lord,
when we think we’re in control
when we think our lives are only in our hands
when we use you -- or try to use you --
to get out of a mess
just so we can get ourselves into another
when we turn to our self made forms of power
thinking we are invincible,
that we are somehow protected from harm and death.
Turn our heads, Lord Jesus,
Catch our eye, as we try to catch yours,
Hoping that you will be with us,
that you will walk with us
through the valley of the shadow of death
and we won’t go that way alone.
Amen.