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Remember Me, Jesus Spencer C. Lawrence, Church of the Cross, Hoffman Estates, IL, April 6, 2007 The Romans crucified two criminals alongside Jesus. They may have been revolutionaries and terrorists, or they may have been just common criminals. Whichever, it is clear that they were as different as night and day. One hurled insults at Jesus demanding his help getting down from the cross. The other made no such demands. His parting words, “Remember me, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom” revealed an understanding of Jesus and his ministry that even the disciples didn’t possess. This second thief, the good thief, is something of a sympathetic figure. Even though he had done wrong, he was aware of it and felt sorry for it. That he merely asked Jesus to remember him instead of demanding a place in his heavenly kingdom underscores the sincerity of his words. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be hard to feel a little angry with him, though. “Now’s a fine time to admit you were wrong all along. Why didn’t you think about what you were doing before you did it? You wouldn’t have hurt others and wouldn’t have found yourself in this awful predicament.” There’s a case to be made against deathbed conversions. But Jesus didn’t seem to care. That the thief was repentant in his hour of dying was good enough. My guess is that most of us have had moments when we prayed in one form or another, “Jesus, remember me.” Maybe it was one of those times when life was coming at us like a tidal wave. The water just kept coming and it got higher and higher, and we wondered if we were going to drown. Life does that some times. Problems mount. Our efforts to fix them don’t seem to work. Sometimes they only make them worse. Like Job. He had not really done anything wrong. At least not out of the ordinary. Nothing that would qualify him for severe punishment of the sort the Lord allowed to come upon him. One day things were going quite nicely, thank you. The next Job found himself covered with boils, sick as a dog. His children all gone. His estate in shambles and his wife telling him he should give up and die. You may recall that some of Job’s friends came by to counsel him. They “lovingly” tried to help him identify his sins and make appropriate confession so God would free him from his afflictions. Job told them that he didn’t know what he had done, and, as far as he could tell, he hadn’t done anything to deserve this mess. After lots of very unhelpful conversations and long solo rants against his state with implied complaints against God who allowed it to come upon him, Job finally heard the word of the Lord. The Lord said that neither Job nor his friends knew what they were talking about. In the end Job learned that God was still God, and that he should worship God alone. Eventually, the Lord restored Job. He received his wealth back, got a new family – same wife, though, and lived pretty much happily ever after. I wish I could say that everyone who gets sick recovers, that someone who loses his or her job will find another one just as good, or that a wife who loses her husband will find one who loves her even more. I wish I could say that. Sometimes it happens, but not always. Sometimes the sick pray and still die; sometimes the next job is a joke compared to what we had before; sometimes there is no prince in shining armor, no princess in a long white gown. Sometimes life is such a disappointment that we just sit there in the dust crying out, “Jesus, remember me!” Other times, perhaps, we’re asking Jesus to remember us when we fear that he may have good reason to forget us – when we’ve done something wrong. Not just the little sins we commit almost every day, but some big sin, something we alone may know about but it haunts our waking and sleeping moments, or something that is way more public than we’d like it to be. We think, “I’ve really blown it this time. I’ve used up the last of my nine spiritual lives. There’s no way God will welcome me back now.” We can understand the distress of the thief on the cross. We know we don’t deserve mercy, but we ask for it any way. We say, “Jesus, remember me.” The movie “Amazing Grace” tells the remarkable story of William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament who for decades led the attempt to outlaw the slave trade throughout the British Empire. In 1807 he was successful. No longer would flags flying England’s colors transport slaves from Africa to the British colonies in the Americas. One of the main influences in Wilberforce’s life was the former slave ship captain and by then evangelical preacher, John Newton. In the movie Newton, who long before had repented of his involvement with the slave trade, left shipping altogether, entered the ministry and had written the great hymn “Amazing Grace”, still agonized over the 20,000 souls he had hauled to either the hell of death or the hell of slavery. Like the thief on the cross, Newton knew that he had done something seriously wrong. He knew he had hurt thousands of people. He knew he didn’t deserve God’s mercy. But he had dared to say to Jesus, “Remember me.” To his amazement, Jesus did. Like Newton we may remember something we did in the past that was really wrong. It’s impossible to forget. Or maybe it was such a pubic event that not only can we not forget it, but also the whole community is aware of it. The police officer whose beating of a young woman bartender caught on videotape and available over the Internet has to be doubly remorseful for his actions. Or maybe it was something more subtle, less crass, but it still is a source of pubic embarrassment for us. Like Newton we can only say, “Remember me, Jesus” and hope against hope that he will amaze us with his grace. After the thief asked Jesus to remember him, Jesus looked at him the best he could – both of them had to be plenty weak from the loss of blood by that time, and said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” One can imagine the other thief, if he were awake to hear it, sneering in derision: “Paradise? This guy really is deluded!” Yet the repentant thief surely found hope in what Jesus said. Jesus didn’t promise him freedom from crucifixion. He didn’t promise to return him to his family and friends. He didn’t promise him a long and successful life. And while the thief couldn’t have understood the full meaning of Jesus’ words, he would have sensed the kindness in his voice. He would have understood the promise of mercy. He would have welcomed the hope of life after death. The good news in all this is that the Jesus, who promised eternal life to the thief, promises the same thing to us. Jesus died making our sins as his very own so we could come alive to God. During World War II many Allied prisoners were held in Japanese prison camps. A work detail in one such camp was returning from its labors camp when a Japanese officer reported that there was one shovel missing. Convinced that one of the prisoners had taken it, he demanded to know who it was. No one responded; no one admitted the theft. The guard became very agitated and began shouting “All die! All die!” to try to get someone to own up to the theft. Finally a prisoner stepped forward saying he had taken it. The guard executed him on the spot. Later it was discovered that no shovel was missing after all. He had willingly given his life so his fellow prisoners wouldn’t die. So it was with Jesus – but more so. Jesus died for the sins of the world. His death sealed the promise of eternal life God makes to us. The oft-quoted verse John 3: 16 states: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Through Jesus we can discover the life of God. Are you in one of those “places” in which the only prayer you can offer is “Remember me, Jesus”? Maybe you’re young and about to get launched in life, and it is a little scary. Or maybe your life has taken unexpected turns and it has left you dazed and confused. Or perhaps you have suffered incalculable loss – of a loved one, of personal health, of the capacity to make good choices - and your best friends don’t know what to tell you. Or maybe, even though you’re successful in your work, have a decent marriage and great kids, down deep something gnaws at you. Something you did that you aren’t proud of. Something your heart can’t forget. Something that makes you wonder, for all your trying, whether or not God really loves you. Whether God really forgives you. Now’s the time to lay it all out before God: all the confusion, all the anger, all the sadness, all the guilt, all the shame and then pray with confidence, “Jesus, remember me. Remember me.” Jesus who remembered the thief will remember us, too. | |||||
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