A theologian once said, “God cannot be understood;
he cannot be grasped by the human mind. The truth escapes our human capacities.
The only way to come close to it is by a constant emphasis on the limitations
of our human capacities to “have” or “hold’ the truth. We can neither explain God
nor his presence in history. We can be faithful only in our affirmation that
God has not deserted us but calls us in the middle of all the unexplainable
absurdities of life. It is very important to be deeply aware of this. There is
a great and subtle temptation to suggest to myself or others where God is
working and where not, when he is present and when not, but nobody, no
Christian, no priest, no monk, has any “special” knowledge about God. God
cannot be limited by any human concept or prediction. He is greater than our
mind and heart and perfectly free to reveal himself where and when he wants.”
(Nouwen, Henri. “Where He Wills” Show Me
the Way pg. 148-49).
It is interesting how God chooses to reveal himself
in the scriptures. He reveals himself to Moses as a voice from a burning bush. He
reveals himself to Samuel in the middle of the night, awakening him with his
voice, “Samuel, Samuel.” He reveals himself to Job as a voice in the midst of a
whirlwind, “Gird up your loins,” and to Elijah, a small still whisper, “Why are
you here, Elijah?” It would appear, in our scriptures, at least, that God is
not limited to how, where, or when he reveals himself to his creation. The
point, our scriptures make, is God hears the cries of his people and reveals
himself to them. He sets them free, he walks with them, he talks with them, and
God is fully present in his relationship with Israel. In God’s faithful revelation,
we are able to faithfully say, “God has not deserted us but calls us in the
middle of all the unexplainable absurdities of life.”
It is important to understand God maintains his
relationship with us, even when we turn away. God is faithful even when we are
faithless. God remains in constant relationship because God birthed us. It is
God who gave us life and as the scriptures teach us, while there are passages
filled with the wrath and anger of God, they are almost immediately followed by
his tenderness, his own remembering of the covenant he made with Abraham, his
own remembering of how he swore, “I will never again curse the ground because
of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor
will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the
earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:21-22).
God reminds us that he is the God who freed our
ancestors from the oppressive Egypt. He reminds us that he is the one who
separated the land from the water, the day from the night. And he reminds us
that he alone is our salvation, therefore, we hold to this truth, God will
never abandon us.
Even in our faithless moments, our scriptures teach,
God remains faithful and we see God’s faithfulness come to fulfillment in
Jesus. The life of Jesus is evidence of God’s eternal covenantal relationship
with all of creation. Every miracle, every feeding, every word, does not come
from Jesus but from God, at least that is what the gospel writers tell us. It
is in the cross, this morning’s passage, we see how far God is willing to go to
stay in relationship with all that he created.
There on the cross, the son of man hangs, beaten and
naked. He is mocked by the crowd, the religious leaders, and the soldiers. To
his right and left, there hangs two criminals, one who keeps deriding him, “Are
you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” but the other rebukes him, saying,
“Do you not fear God, since you are sentenced the same? And we have been
condemned justly, for we are getting what we have sown, but this man has done
nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom.”
It is a request of remembrance, not a request of
salvation, or a request of rescue, simply a request to be remembered. We know
nothing about this criminal, other than he’s crime warranted death. We do not
even know his name, which leads us to a lot of speculation. Perhaps the
criminal had heard the stories of the man that some called Moses or Elijah or
John the Baptist come back from the dead. Perhaps he heard of the miracles Jesus
did, or how he resurrected the dead, or the stories he told. Perhaps he heard
how he told a wee little man in Jericho that he too was a son of Abraham.
Perhaps the criminal simply believed in a God whose compassion is greater than
his wrath. We are not told the reasons why but he simply asks Jesus to remember
him. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness for the things his done, it’s evident in
his rebuke of the other he knows he is reaping what he has sown but there is no
confession of Jesus being the Christ, no sinner’s prayer, simply a request to
be remembered. And then something miraculous happens: God reveals himself.
I have heard it said that God abandoned Jesus on the
cross because he took on the sins of the world and God’s perfection does not
allow him to witness the death of his son. Luke seems to rebuke such an idea
because Jesus says to the criminal, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me
in Paradise.” The voice of God appears to the criminal. The voice of God
assures this criminal he will not be forgotten, he will be remembered, and
Jesus goes further, promising him today he would be with him. The voice of the
King of kings reveals the true nature of God. A nature in which God is willing
to be crucified in order to stay in relationship with his creation.
The cross is Rome’s torturous political lesson to
the people: We can crush the humanity out of you. It is a political move
carried out on Jesus by the powerful religious vocal minority in hopes this God
Movement would be crushed. For they do not want a king who serves, who sets the
oppressed free, who blesses the poor, and criticizes the wealthy. They do not
want a king who makes the blind see, the lame walk, or the sick well; but from
the cross, the voice of God, the voice of our King, speaks, “Truly, I tell you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.” The voice of God, Luke says, cannot be
silenced, it cannot be crushed. Even in the most powerful torturous moments of
our human history, God still reveals himself to us, he maintains the
relationship. We see in the cross, not God’s abandonment, but God’s
self-revelation. We see the true revelation of God whose love for the earth and
all that are in it, he is willing to
endure the horrors of the cross. In that torturous moment Jesus cries, “Father,
into your hands I commend my spirit,” because he knows God is not absent from
the cross. God is there, as he is there.
As Luke brings this dreadful scene to a close, he
pulls the camera back to reveal the criminal is not the only one to experience
this voice of revelation. The centurion, we are told, upon seeing what took
place, praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.” And the crowd who
had gathered for this spectacle, saw what had happened, they returned home,
beating their breasts. But all who knew of him, including the women who had
followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
From a distance they see the revelation of God. They
hear the voice of God reveal himself. They witness the ushering in of the
kingdom, and they experience three days later that this kingdom cannot be
crushed. The powers that be can try to crucify them all, Luke says, but the
kingdom of heaven will never be destroyed. The powerful can try to silence
their voices but they can never silence the voice of our King, Luke says.
We stand with them too, from a far distance, and we
can hear the voice of our king speak, “Truly I tell you. Today you will be with
me in paradise.” Our hearts melt because we know nothing can stop this coming
kingdom, no cross, no government, not even death, cannot stop God from
fulfilling his relationship covenant with his people. From the Roman cross we
hear the voice of our King speak, “Nothing of this world can stop this coming
kingdom. Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The voice of our King cannot be silenced; so let us
raise our voices and be heard. Let the weak say they are strong. Let the poor
say they are rich. Let the lame dance with glad feet. Let us sing and give
thanks to the Holy One because he has revealed himself. Let us give thanks with
a grateful heart for the voice of our King.
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