Psalm 22:14-21
Luke 23:32-43

Only Luke records the conversation between Jesus and the repentant thief.  Matthew and Mark report that both criminals treated Jesus with the same mockery as did the rulers and the people.  Matthew wrote, "And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way" (Matt. 27:44).  Unlike his wilderness temptations, Jesus told nothing about the temptations on the cross.  What were these temptations like?  Was he tempted to hurl abuse at abuse?  If he could not get back at someone, could he not at least get even with somebody in the crowd or one of the thieves?  He who had called and worked so hard for justice was receiving no justice.  Was he not tempted to scream, "Unfair!"?  Is the silence of Jesus at this point as portrayed by Matthew and Mark a quiet, reviling silence?
           
Luke consistently portrayed Jesus identifying with the outcasts:  lepers, Samaritans, adulteresses, and here, a common thief.  This common thief's words seem to focus our attention on the crosses and on the center cross.  To view the cross in the middle in the context of the words, "Today you will be with me," affects our perception of the cross.
           
To look at the cross is to look squarely in the face of capital punishment and requires that we see the other crosses.  There is never just one cross.  Always there are other crosses.  Always there are other forms of capital punishment.  The Gospels are branded by the sight of these other crosses.  Each writer tells part and parcel of the life and times of Jesus, but all are equally impressed by the other crosses.  The other crosses keep saying that there are times, even in this plush world of wickedness, when wickedness is punished.  Malefactors sometimes are crucified.  According to our view and standards, people do some­times get just what they deserve.  Malefactors as well as saviors are crucified.  Thus, there is never, and never has been, just one cross.  There are many crosses, all kinds of crosses.
           
But what about Jesus' cross?  Why do we focus on it? What difference is there in his cross?  The other crosses made no difference.  They were the instruments which the law used to break people who broke the law.  Jesus’ cross made no difference, but the one on the cross made the difference.  The total event of Jesus' life is what made the difference.  Who Jesus was and how he lived made him one who showed us the way to live. What was done to Jesus was what some political and religious leaders did to him.  What was done to Jesus was the will of a few people.  It was not the will, purpose or intent of God.   It was this one showing people the way to relationship with God who said, "So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.  For this reason God loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:17‑18).  In this drama of dramas, Jesus literally died in place of Barabbas and set a captive free.  There is the metaphor of God’s activity.  God always seeks to free the captive.  Whatever or whoever holds people captive, God continually is working for their release, their freedom.     Here we see that the battle is not for one person or for a segment of the population, but for all people everywhere.  Jesus came to all people.  The whole human race is involved.  No one is excluded.
           
Probably we could understand Jesus' identifying with his mother, or with John or one of the other disciples who had been with him and cared about him.  But what happened on the cross is so difficult for us to comprehend.  It really is a simple event‑‑so simple that all humanity nearly missed it.  All that John tells is that "There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them" (John 19:18).  Matthew and Mark add a little more, but in what they add, they treat both others alike.  Without Luke, we would have missed something very significant.
           
The two thieves were brought along to get their executions over with on the same day.  It was a matter of expediency.  If they were going to kill one person, what was it to kill a couple more at the same time?  The thieves watched Jesus being crucified.  They waited their turns.  Their anxieties rose; terror mounted.  Accord­ing to Luke, one of them joined the railings, "Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us!" (Lk. 23:29).  Then, a human being with a terrible reputation responded to his chance.  He recognized the one he had ignored.  He reacted to the railing coming from his companion's cross.  "Do you not fear God?"  He recognized his own guilt and cried out, "We receive the due reward for our deeds."  He saw something new, something different in Jesus and said, "This man has done nothing wrong." As a result of his vision, faith dawned in him and he cried from his cross to the center cross, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  And Jesus went all the way to the dying criminal and made a direct promise, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."  Only Luke tells of this conversation.  
           
The structure of the cross of Jesus was no different than the thief's cross.  It was made of two pieces of wood like his.  But there was something about the way the one on that cross turned on the lights for this one who also was dying.  Maybe it was what and how he heard Jesus say, "Forgive them."  Luke does not comment about what turned the midnight of this man's soul into the dawn of faith, but evidently forgiveness ignited repentance.
           
Whatever caused it, the response of the dying thief surprises us.  Does this not tell us that God's rule and reign always has been made up of people who are hopeless?  What more hopeless person has there ever been than this criminal?  He had broken the law, and now he was experiencing the consequences.  What chance had he?  He had no time to live a holy life.  He could not learn the Lord's prayer.  He could not become a church member or be baptized or take Communion.  Of all the hopeless people you ever saw, this one is most hopeless.  But any person, no matter how hopeless or how low life has become or how low one may have stooped, every person is acceptable to God.  Jesus identified himself once with a paralytic to show that the loathsome might come to God; with a Pharisee to show that those who take religion seriously could come to God; with a little child to show how all have to come to God.  And here Jesus identified with this common criminal to show that anyone may come to God.  Jesus was never so wrapped in himself or so embroiled by the hurt and injustice done to him that he could not respond to the expressed need of anyone of any status.  Having been a wounded healer in his living, he also could be a wounded healer in his dying.  He could respond to the one who tore away his pretension and said, "We are getting what we deserve."
           
Here is the central incident of this drama at the cross.  The thief cries, "Lord, keep me in mind."  Jesus answers, "This very day you will be with me in Paradise."  The word paradise is a Persian word.  Its root meaning is "walled garden."  When a Persian king wished to do one of his subjects a very special honor, he made him a companion of the garden and he was chosen to walk in the garden with the king.  The word was just beginning to be used in Palestine.5 Jesus used the word in the sense that this one who was dying was immediately his companion in the presence of God. Jesus promised the thief the honored place of companionship in his presence.  Jesus said to this common criminal that that very day he and the criminal would have the same relationship in the presence of God.  Given what this man had done with his life and the immanence of his death, does he not represent human hopelessness?  There is none farther away than this one, and yet Jesus went all the way to him and embraced him with the loving words, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."
           
Unfortunately, this event has been used to place too much emphasis on the next life and not enough emphasis on this life. In the first story in the Bible, after God created the world, God gave humans the responsibility of caring for the world.  As Philip Gulley notes, “To shirk that duty in order to focus on a world we have no verifiable proof even exists is misguided.  Yet many Christians still contend that preparing people for an afterlife should be the church’s chief priority and willingly commit much energy and money securing entry to heaven even as people suffer and starve for lack of basic necessities.
           
“Not only does our preoccupation with an afterlife cause us to neglect our present lives, it ultimately makes us self-absorbed as the goal of our faith becomes our own eternal well-being.  Healthy religion should not consist of saving our skin.  As the Quaker William Penn wrote, ‘True godliness does not turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.’
           
“What if we heeded Penn’s words and found ourselves excited at the prospect of mending the world rather than escaping it? What if we began taking seriously our stewardship of creation? . . . What if saving the earth were more important than saving our souls?” (Philip Gulley, If the Church Were Christian, Locations 2012-28, Kindle Book)
           
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he told them to pray that God’s reign and rule would come to earth.  Today was the day of salvation.  Today was the day for them to be with God and God to be with them.  And what was that day?  It was the day when all of humanity would be so imbued with God’s presence that we would hunger and thirst for righteousness.  To be with Jesus today in Paradise is to walk with him in the presence of God. It is when heaven is in us, not when we are in heaven.  It happens when we stop worrying about saving our own skin and start caring more about saving and restoring the land and sea and sky and all that dwell therein.  Somehow one of the thieves on the cross got that message.  Apparently the combination of the circumstances of his life and death and the life and death of Jesus converged in such a way that the light went on for him in his mind
           
The last words of Jesus are potent with meaning and inten­sity.  They confirm that one person, the human being par excellent, died like he lived.  These words tell us that the reign of God always is made up of people who are hopeless.  Here a hopeless human being with life fading from him caught enough of a glimpse of the man on the center cross for the dawn of faith to break into his life.  When the lights were going out, the light came on for this common thief.  This common criminal's last words were, "Lord, when you come into your kingdom, remember me."  Jesus' last words to him were, "Today you will be with me in relationship in the presence of God."  What greater promise could we desire than these same words, no matter our circumstance or situation in life, "Today you will be with me . . ." Today we are welcomed, accepted, invited into the presence of God.
           
There is no greater promise.  There is no greater hope.  The promise and hope are communicated in other places with other words.  Earlier in his ministry, Jesus said to his disciples, “I will never leave you or forget about you.”  That same hope is offered to any and to all.  Many years after Jesus died, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come . . .” It is an expansive, totally inclusive list that absolutely nothing can keep God from loving us, accepting us, and embracing us in relationship.
           
Is there any way for this message to be stated more clearly than, “Today, you will be with me . . .” It was said to a thief who was getting what the government had determined he deserved.  Clearly Jesus said the government did not have the last word.  What God said through Jesus is being said to you and you and to me.  Today whether we live or die, we will be wrapped in the abiding love of God.  What a lasting word that is for any of us and for all of us!  “Today we are in the presence of God.”