You Will Be With Me

Scripture: Luke 23:39-43

On its face it seems like a simple story with a simple message: Jesus has mercy on a man who confesses his guilt and proclaims his faith in Christ. But there are few simple stories in the Bible. And there are no simple stories about the death of the Son of God. So let's look closely at this passage, which has many things to say to us, including some very hard things.

Let's begin by remembering where this story takes place: at the site of some of the greatest suffering in the history of the world; at a site not just of death but of mass systematic torture. We have grown accustomed to this story and hardened by the sufferings of this life. So we may unconsciously look away from the terrible reality of the context of these words; we may find ourselves picking up our pace and hurrying past the anguish of the Cross to the triumphal comforts of Easter.

In one of his most famous novels, Albert Camus describes the misery that follows when a plague descends upon an Algerian village. As the death toll mounts, the villagers become less sensitive to the suffering around them. Camus writes: "In some houses groans could be heard. At first, when that happened, people often gathered outside and listened, prompted by curiosity or compassion. But under the prolonged strain it seemed that hearts had toughened; people lived beside these groans or walked past them as though they had become the normal speech of men." (Albert Camus, The Plague (1948))

We need to stop and gather at the foot of the Cross. We need to listen. We need to hear the groans of these three condemned men -- and to hear them for what they are.

This does not just force us to confront something terrible. It forces us to confront something profoundly unsettling. It forces us to plunge into the deep and turbulent waters of this complex theological question: does God suffer?

We take it as a given that Jesus suffered. Much of our understanding of the significance of the crucifixion depends upon it. And the traditions of our faith recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah's messianic prophecy of the "suffering servant."

But does the Father -- to whom Jesus later cries out -- suffer? Is God suffering even as Jesus speaks the words in this story? If not, then what are we to make of such a God and the idea that we are made in God's image? If so, then how does that correspond to our understanding of God's power and authority? Can we coherently imagine a God who has ultimate control and who also suffers -- when suffering in our experience so often reflects an absence of control?

The revered theologian Jurgen Moltmann offers this answer: "If God were in every respect incapable of suffering, God wold also be incapable of love. If God is love, however, God opens God's self for the suffering that love for others brings. God does not suffer, as we do, out of deficiency of being, but God does suffer from love for creation, which is the overflowing superabundance of God's divine being. In this sense, God can suffer, will suffer, and is suffering in the world." (Jurgen Motlmann, "The Crucified God Yesterday and Today," in Passion for God: Theology in Two Voices 74-75 (2004)).

So when we come to this story, we must restrain ourselves from rushing to its consoling message of redemption -- even though it unquestionably contains one. We must pause and remember that we have come to a place of unspeakable suffering: suffering of the children of God; suffering of the very Son of God; suffering of and by God; suffering for us.

There is, of course, a tragic irony in the fact that this suffering occurred on behalf of humankind -- for the suffering also occurred at the behest of humankind. It shames us to remember that Jesus was crucified not against the will of the people but in compliance with and fulfillment of the will of the people. And it shames us to remember that, throughout the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, only a few people expressed their belief in his innocence. As if to compound the irony, those few are not among the Bible's heroes. To the contrary, they included Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the criminal in our story -- a man about whom we know little, except that his crime and his guilt were great enough to force from his lips the confession that he deserved to be crucified.

Jesus responds to this confession with words that must have comforted the criminal -- and that must challenge us. "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." This is a stunning pronouncement, dense with good news, and dense with hard news as well.

The hard news comes not from what Jesus says, but from what He does not say. In context, it seems clear that Jesus directs His promise to the criminal who has confessed his weakness. It therefore follows that Jesus did not offer similar reassurance toward the criminal who was deriding Him. To put it more pointedly, His statement offers hope to one man, but it also passes judgment against another. Of course, the text includes no explicit discussion of any such judgment and we can't presume to know what became of the other criminal. But the apparent omission of any palliative words toward him invites us into a close consideration of divine justice, which we must think as perfect as divine love, even if thinking so makes us very uneasy.

But the good news is extraordinarily good -- indeed, so good it threatens to eclipse the harder news implicit in this story. For, in these words, Jesus extended a promise to one of the forlorn -- and to all of us as well. And it is a promise that gives us cause for unalloyed joy and unbridled hope.

In these words, Jesus made a promise to the least deserving in the kingdom. He made a promise to a man who had done some very bad things -- so bad the man had given up on himself and had embraced death by torture as a fitting end to his life. But Jesus tells the man that he -- even he -- could go where Christ would lead him.

In these words, Jesus made a promise that exceeded the man's prayers. Indeed, you'll notice that this criminal asks nothing of Jesus but to remember him. But Jesus embraces the man beyond his greatest expectations, beyond his wildest hopes.

And, in these words, Jesus made a promise that was not remote or distant in its fulfillment. "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The man had asked for something that could only be achieved over time; he asked not to be forgotten. But Jesus gives him something for which he does not need to wait; he gives him something immediate.

In his beautiful commentary on the seven last words of Christ, Peter Storey writes as follows about this passage: "Today! The early Methodist circuit riders of the American frontier never tired of telling their hearers that the offer of Chrst's forgiveness and salvation was available now -- immediately! There was no need to wait. We come to the Cross to make that discovery again and to cry, 'Remember me, Jesus.' Today!" (Peter Storey, Listening at Golgotha 36 (2004))

So I want to leave you with these questions. If Jesus, in the throes of his own agony, in the midst of his greatest suffering, heard the voice of a dying and disgraced felon, can we believe it possible that he does not hear our voices as well? Can we believe he does not answer us? Can we believe he does not say "I am with you?" Can we believe he does not say "and you -- you will be with me?"

Amen.