Today You Will Be With Me In Paradise

A Good Friday homily

For our Good Friday service today, six of our men prepared homilies from the last seven statements of Jesus on the cross. Our pastor did two, to round out the seven. This is what I prepared and delivered this morning.

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

Let us consider for a moment the man to whom these words were spoken.

Was it conscience?

Was it an instinctive response of lashing out at persecutors?

Was it a recognition in that moment that the man on the middle cross was different?

Why did this man on the cross beside Jesus

1. Defend Jesus’ innocence, and…

2. Ask Jesus to remember him when Jesus came into his kingdom?

The Lord Jesus was crucified on Golgotha, the place where David had put the skull of Goliath after their battle. The place was named after Goliath’s head. Is driving a wooden cross into the skull of Goliath a symbolic head-crushing event? It looks so to me.

Jesus was on that cross because of his claim of Kingship. This had been a stone of stumbling to Israel for Jesus’ entire life. Herod tried to kill him when he was a baby because he was a king. Jesus preached the kingdom of God, with himself as the king, the judge who separated the sheep from the goats. The Jews had handed him over to the Romans on the grounds that Jesus claimed to be a king, a rival to Ceasar. This notion was so central to why he was on the cross that Pilate had it written on a placard in three languages and posted to the top of the cross on which Jesus was hung. “Jesus, the King of the Jews”.

The two men who were crucified on either side of him that day had been notorious criminals, whose deeds had been evil enough to warrant their execution. We are not told in the Luke account what they had done, but Matthew and Mark tell us that they had been robbers. Takers of what was not theirs. Adam’s rebellion, reaching for something before God gave it to him, had been taken to heart by these men, and they had turned it into a violent way of life. Stealing to make a living was against the law in Israel, unless you were a religious leader, and you had perfected your scam. Or a tax collector. Or a Roman soldier. If you were on the government payroll, or on the temple payroll, you were immune. But remember Jesus with his whip in the temple? Twice driving the den of robbers out of his Father’s house? Jesus was crucified between two robbers on Golgotha, but he may just as well have been in the Temple…

These two were not so sophisticated as the Temple guys and thus ran afoul of the law. They were caught and jailed and thrown into the overflowing cauldron that was the Roman prison system. The cross was a favored Roman method of keeping the prison population at manageable levels.

When these two men had reached their final earthly destination, they must have noticed that the rage of the unusually enormous crowd was not directed at them, but rather at the man who was being crucified between them. Everybody was shouting at Jesus, and mocking Jesus. They were an almost invisible sideshow. They heard what Jesus heard, the rulers standing by saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The Christ of God…These two were probably Jews, and they knew what this meant. This man claimed to be the Messiah. They probably saw, through the pain of their sufferings, the sign above his head; “Jesus the king of the Jews”.

(“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”, said James and John. “And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right hand, and one on his left.” Said Mark the gospel writer. Looks like those two got there ahead of you, James and John…)

The first two gospels say that both of the robbers reviled Jesus, not just one of them. Luke, looking a little closer at these two, notes the distinction between them. They may have both joined in the reviling, but one of them soon stopped and had a change of heart. Something happened. Maybe the Spirit gave this man some clarity there on the cross, with the eternal Son of God hanging beside him. Maybe the Spirit revealed Jesus to him for who he was.

Whatever it was, he turned from reviling to defending. He spoke to the fellow on the far side of Jesus, Jesus being the buffer between them. “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

You, O Robber who is going to die today for your sins. Your sins have been wiped away on God’s books. Today this happened. When you acknowledged that I was righteous and you were not, when you believed that I was who they mockingly said I was, the King, and that I would come into my kingdom. Today, when you sought first the Kingdom of God. Today, when you showed allegiance to the King, the King forgave you. And then he welcomed you into his presence in Paradise as a long-lost son.

Nothing appears outwardly to have changed. You are still on that cross, and it and those who put you there will end your life shortly. The crowd is still raging, the chief priests are still filling everyone’s ears with their bile. But they are not in charge. I am. Watch this. (Suddenly the world goes dark at midday…)

This sheep had been behaving as a wolf for almost all his life. He had some residual knowledge of right and wrong from when he was a boy, but he had deliberately gone down a wicked path. He had harmed people, he had broken people’s hearts, he had impoverished others for his own gain. He did not deserve the kindness of God. But it was shown to him just the same. This irks us when we believe we somehow deserve God’s favor. A story like this teaches us to get rid of that sentiment. God saves the undeserving and those who walk uprightly, and he does so by the same means.

Jesus is the King, and if you want his favor, show allegiance to him. Do things to honour him. Learn his word, that you may better understand how to do this. Incline your heart to him, and obedience will become a joy. Learn to trust him. Learn to believe him.

King Jesus welcomed into Paradise a man who had only just started down that road. Thank the Lord on his behalf. Don’t question God’s choice of people. Learn to be thankful when the Saving King does his work. He has done this for you, after all, and you were undeserving.

Blessed be the King who saves, even when he does it at the last moment!

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.