As people with mood disorders, we’re both prone to wasting away, and also feeling as if we’ve “wasted our lives.”
What have we done for the Lord, for others, for anyone?
We can barely stay afloat, let alone help others onto the boat.
And so we wonder how Jesus could see us any differently from how the church does — wastes who never get off the ground, “fulfill our spiritual gifts,” or “run the race” like a Christian dynamo.
Jesus has something to say about that, and it comes in the story of the thief on the cross.
Luke 23:42-43
“Then he said, ‘Jesus, Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, ‘I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
“Did you hear about Gedaliah?” Adinah asks as she sweeps the dust off her Jerusalem porch.
“No, we were praying for him last week at Synagogue Group. Is he still a…” She’s not sure if this is gossip or just sharing prayer requests, so she pauses.
Her friend, who’s the self-appointed fulcrum of information at Synagogue, quickly updates her.
“Yup, still a thief, and – listen to this. He was crucified last weekend!”
“Crucified?!” For being a thief?”
“For being a thief.”
“Crucified, for being a thief?”
That’s no ordinary thief.
It took some doing to be crucified in Israel.
The church father John Chrysostom speculates that the thief on the cross might have lived in the desert where he robbed and murdered travelers.
So either the thief on the cross was the worst thief in all of Israel (a murdering one), or he was a more conventional thief with the worst luck in all of Israel, which is an awful failure, in and of itself.
He was either supremely unrighteous or supremely un-lucky.
And now the thief even failed his way through the criminal justice system. Unlike Barabbas, he wasn’t set free.
He failed his way to crucifixion.
What a disappointment, his parents might have thought, what a waste, his friends and brothers might have concluded. What a sinner, the church might have sneered.
We all leave a legacy, and when we fail miserably, we want to erase ourselves.
Not just what we did, but actually erase our memory from the minds of others.
If everyone knew the worst of me, and there is a worst of me, I wouldn’t want to try to repair my legacy or somehow make them think better of me.
I’d want them to forget me. Completely and totally.
And so the thief left a memory, and he must have known it was a terrible one, and who would want to be remembered this way.
Now of course, Jesus was also on the cross that day and, during their shared agony, the thief said these two words to Jesus.
“Remember me.”
“Remember me” to God.
Strange.
The Thief on the Cross was asking God, of all people, to remember him.
In Greek, the phrase, “remember me,” means the thief was “making an active plea for remembrance.”
The thief was begging Jesus to think, “Oh, yes, the thief” as soon as he got to paradise, which is odd because if I’d spent my life robbing and killing people, the last thing I’d really want is for a holy God to remember me.
In fact, you and I have lived “better lives” than the thief, but there’s something in us that’s a little iffy over whether we want God to remember us when we die.
Sure, we want heaven, but maybe by sneaking past the Judge.
You know, walk in the middle of a pack of saints and hope he doesn’t see us.
But if we’re faced with him on our own, we imagine God saying, “Yes, I remember you. In fact, I remember every single thing you’ve ever done and said.”
Then he pauses, “And I remember everything you’ve ever thought.”
That terrifies me.
I’d rather God remember nothing about me than everything about me.
But the thief still says, “Remember Me.”
Why would the thief, of all things, plead with God to remember him?
There’s only one way.
Somehow the thief saw a different God than the one we fear, and in that clarity, grasped that being remembered by Jesus after death was a good thing, and not just a good thing, but the best possible thing.
In fact, it was the thing he begged for.
He wasn’t begging the centurion.
That would seem the thing to do, right?
After all, win Hadrias over and you’re off the cross, at physical therapy for a few months, and then your life is back.
But the thief begged Christ for mercy. Why?
There are two reasons.
First, the thief must have believed, “I’ve got a better shot with Christ’s mercy than the centurion’s.”
Humans tend to look for mercy where they think it is — the power center, and the heart center.
And to the thief, mercy wasn’t in the heart of the centurion with the sword, it was the one strung on up on the cross.
You and I get this mixed up all the time with God.
My wife shows me mercy every day, and it doesn’t surprise me.
Occasionally, I’ll think, “Wow, she is a merciful woman,” but even in my surprise, I don’t struggle to believe it.
But my wife’s mercy has nothing on Christ’s and yet I doubt his, constantly.
And if you were to ask me who I’d prefer on the judgment seat, I’d say, “my wife” in an instant.
In short, I expect more from the Roman centurion than Jesus.
The thief didn’t have that problem.
And that’s because when he saw Christ, he saw some supernatural mercy, some impossible mercy that he’d never seen before.
And it was so enormous that he didn’t even look down at the Romans for help, and it was so comforting that he didn’t even care about his terrible legacy or that God might judge him for it.
He must have seen something in Christ’s eyes, or the way he spoke, so deeply and lovingly, to those cursing and killing him – something that led him to believe that nothing else good or miraculous was possible that day, except Christ’s mercy.
And so when he pled “Remember Me,” he knew that Jesus saw his “Me” unlike anyone else in the world.
Jesus sees your “Me” unlike anyone else in the world, too.
And so when you ask Jesus, “Remember me,” it’s not the me that you think of.
It’s the me that Christ sees, and he will instantly say, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise.”
There’s something else behind the thief’s request that gives us a glimpse of Jesus.
Usually, if we’re confronted with someone powerful and big, we squirm.
Even if they’re loving and good, we still squirm.
Christians love to compare God to C.S. Lewis’ lion, Aslan (or Aslan to God – I’m not sure who has primacy these days).
And one of Christians’ favorite lines comes from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe when the beaver tells the children that Aslan isn’t safe, but he’s good.
That’s supposed to be comforting.
I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be comforting because if the thief thought Christ was like Aslan (good but not safe), I doubt he’d have turned to him, instead of the centurion.
I doubt the robbing, murdering thief would have asked the good, unsafe one to remember him first thing in paradise.
But there’s no indication the thief squirmed or worried about Jesus’ answer, and there’s absolutely no indication Jesus gave him any reason to.
Jesus doesn’t even remind Thief on the Cross that he is the Thief On The Cross.
He simply responds, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Jesus didn’t seem at all displeased, or put off by the thief.
In fact, I’d like to think the thief’s confession was somehow the bright spot in the horror of Christ’s crucifixion.
That the Father put the thief there to remind Jesus of why he came, because when you and I see visible fruit from our suffering, it gives the pain meaning.
Maybe the thief on the cross was the Father’s final mercy to his son before death.
“You see, this is why you came. That dying, wounded one there on the cross. He’s why you’re here. Push on a bit longer, my beloved son, and you’ll both come home.”
Jesus didn’t resent the thief’s death-bed confession, instead, it must have touched him deeply, and so his proclamation that “today you will be with me in Paradise” might have sounded intimate and wistful — the way two suffering friends talk about the end of an awful journey and the beautiful place they’ll soon reach.
In the worst stretches of war, soldiers often remind themselves of home, which must seem like paradise to them, and in that longing, mixed with suffering, a kinship and intimacy is born that’s impossible to produce in our normal lives.
It’s nostalgia and in Jesus’ strange life of virgin births, eating and drinking with sinners, and his kindship with his friends, the miracles, it makes sense that nostalgia would show up in the strangest place.
“Nostalgia” comes from two Greek words – one meaning homecoming and the other pain. It’s an aching for home, whatever that looks like.
And so Jesus and the thief bled and thirsted to death, yet as brothers. Brothers aching for the home they knew was ahead.
Jesus is your brother, too, and as you bleed and thirst, Jesus is beside you.
And you and I might feel a nostalgia for our past or somewhere else, but our real pain and ache is a nostalgia for paradise, and for both the thief and Christ, paradise was on their mind, and home was soon.
And for you and me, as well.
Turn to Jesus and he will say, with the warmth of a friend who has shared your suffering, “One day you will be with me in Paradise.”
Maybe not today.
But some day, yes, and then every day.
[Painting by Titian]
