From the cross, these words: "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
In all the sadness of Good Friday, shrouded by this veil of not just death but great, long suffering--on this solemn and funereal day--we are asked to consider a word of grace and blessing. It is a relief, in its way: a horrible thing is happening before our eyes, and all earth seems evil. If humanity was not condemned when Adam sinned, or when Cain killed Abel, surely we are condemned now: we have crucified our Lord; we have convicted the only one who was innocent; we have taken the holiness of God, and made it a mockery before all.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, hangs dying on the cross... and this is the pulpit from which God offers us heaven. "Truly, I tell you: today, you will be with me in paradise."
It is almost too beautiful, too benevolent, what he says. There is a museum in New York City, a northern extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called the Cloisters. Its stone rooms and cold monastic walkways are filled with medieval art: reliquaries, paintings, carvings, and the unicorn tapestries. In one room, in a corner beneath a high shaft of light, stands an old 12th-century wood carving of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding his body after the crucifixion. His body is small on her lap; there was a popular story in the church in those days that when Mary held Jesus' dead body, she went wild with grief and thought he was again an infant in her arms. This statue is so beautiful--its carving done with such care, the wood underneath so rich, the folds of the draped cloth so perfect and pleasing--it is so beautiful that it seems too beautiful, almost, for its subject. Here lies Jesus, a dead body. Here sits his mother, in unknowable grief, bending over him. A pieta, we call it: pity.
In that same way, these words that Jesus speaks seem too beautiful for their setting, for Good Friday or for the cross. "Truly, I tell you," he says: "Today you will be with me in paradise."
These words are the end of a short conversation he has been having. The interchange begins in mockery. One of the thieves with whom Jesus is crucified mocks him: "Aren't you the Christ? Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself, and us!" It is only what everyone has been saying. The leaders who mocked him on the cross said, "He saved others; let him save himself." The soldiers said, too: "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Even the crowds, welcoming him into Jerusalem, shouted: "Hosanna!" "Save us." Last week, on Palm Sunday, it was a joyful cry. Now, in the crucifixion, it is a jab, a taunt. Everyone is saying, to this man whose very name means "He saves," "Save."
Our first instinct is perhaps to want to draw a line between ourselves and these people. We are those who believe, who love him still here and now. Perhaps these others, these mockers, are those who do not believe as we can. Maybe there are those who simply cannot make the leap from possibility, or consideration, to faith. But when the thief derided him--when he said, "Aren't you the Christ? Save us!"--was there not some part of him that wanted it to be true? Wasn't there some glimmer of home in his heart, that it might just happen that way--that this fellow near him might, in fact, suddenly exercise amazing power, and spring down from the cross? If he were the Messiah, the Savior, surely he would save! Some part of him must have wanted it to be true. Some part of all those who mocked him--the leaders, the soldiers, the priests and passers-by--some part of everyone wants it to be the truth that there is a savior, and that salvation has been brought to us. Everyone, at some point in life, hopes to be saved.
The question we are faced with is never, could you believe; it is, Do you?
The question is not: if you were faced with an amazing miracle, before your very eyes--if suddenly you saw some horrible thing supernaturally prevented, or the course of the world was shaken by an external hand in some impossible way--if you were shown a sign, not when God chose to send it, but exactly when and how you asked for it, and whenever you asked for it so that you could test it and tempt it to fail again and again, yet the miracle were always instantly accomplished--the question is not if, under those circumstances, you could believe. Of course you could. Everyone has some capacity for belief, and some understanding of what and who God is. Even this thief has an idea of what God can do. But God is no circus performer, to gratify our amazement.
The question is, instead, much harder. The question we are given, for our lives, is: if your Savior is hung upon the cross, do you still believe? If your Savior hangs there and no miracle takes place, but he promises that this is the beginning and the gateway to salvation, and that this moment will conquer death--do you still have the strength to believe when all evidence seems to tell you to give up? Not can you trust, as though you are simply talented that way, but do you trust, no matter what? Will you still trust God if Jesus Christ dies on the cross? Will you have faith, and patience, to wade through this thick darkness on Good Friday, until the first day of the week arises in us again?
For faith, Paul tells us, is the assurance of things hoped for--the conviction of things not seen.
Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." But it is a long, long day, and there are many hours to endure first. He is not offering an easy release from trial, or a quick end to suffering.
In the meanwhile, God is with us in the darkness. God is with us in all suffering. This is the response of the second thief: "Do you not fear God," he asks, "since you are under the same sentence with him?" God, Jesus, is with them in their own moment of darkness. This second thief has that strength, which is so hard to find, which enables us to be humble, even when we recognize how fallen we are. For most of the time, when we feel small, or belittled, or when we are faced with what we have done wrong, we don't want to admit it. We want to hide from it, and we hide by concealing ourselves in a false greatness. But the second thief speaks with a rare strength, because he sees himself honestly. He knows that his condemnation is just. He does not blow himself up to be great; but he acknowledges that God alone is great. "Do you not fear God," he asks the other?
It is a liminal conversation. Luke writes it almost as if he could see into people's minds and hearts. In this second thief's heart, there is no hiding. There is no bombast or buffoonery, there is no blustering and there are no boasts. But as he waits through these three hours, as he takes an account of his life and of his deeds, and as he looks to the one who remains beside him through it all in compassion and understanding, he decides that the question he must answer is not: can Jesus save him, but does he.
So he registers a petition to the Lord, saying:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
And so Jesus responds, with those words that are almost too beautiful for Good Friday:
"Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
His answer, his faithful answer, is Yes.
But today is a long, long day. There are many hours to endure first, and tomorrow lies fallow and silent, like the tomb.
In the meantime, let God be with us, beside us, in this silence.
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