One of the remarkable things about the events of Good Friday is how much we know about them. Almost unparalleled in ancient history, we have not one, but four separate eye-witness accounts of Jesus arrest, travesty of a trial and eventual crucifixion.
These four accounts - found the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – look at the same events from different perspectives, from different vantage points. Each account highlights various aspects of the story. Different characters are given emphasis or place. Placed side by side the four accounts give us a unified and comprehensive view of the events we remember today.
Within the story we have different characters whose view of the events that day would be as unique as they are different.
· The disciples were bewildered, confused and grief-stricken. They had invested three years of their life following a man in whose hands they had placed their future. Rather than triumphantly leading his people to freedom, he was dying a shame-filled death on a cross.
· The people were doing what people do best; following the crowd. Days earlier as Jesus entered
Jerusalem
on the back of a donkey they cried out Hosanna in acclamation. Now that shouted ‘Crucify him’ in derision.
· The religious leaders looked on and felt vindication. This blasphemer, this threat, this marginal teacher was now dealt with. The status quo could resume. The real Messiah could come.
· The Roman Authorities looked on through jaded eyes with bemusement; these strange Jews with their strange God. So much fuss over someone so seemingly inconsequential.
· Then there was Jesus’ family, his mother and siblings. Like any family would be, they looked on through sobs of grief.
Each of the four gospels speaks of two other characters who watched Jesus’ crucifixion first-hand. In fact you could say they had front-row seats. On either side of Jesus that day two robbers, two criminals were also executed. Nowhere are we told what they did to deserve their punishment. We do know that crucifixion was used by the authorities to execute the worst criminals and those who posed the greatest threat to Roman order. Most likely they were common criminals - robbers.
Just as Jesus lived his life – in the company of the despised, the rejected, the shame-filled - the outsiders – so he dies.
Even these two criminals have radically different perspectives about Jesus’ death. One looks on with cynicism and anger. ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Aren’t you the King of the Jews? Save yourself and us!’
By contrast, through sheer desperation and God-given insight, the other criminal sees something far deeper and more profound going on in Jesus’ death. He rebukes the other criminal, reminding him that they were getting the punishment they deserved. Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to be gasping for breath with them.
Then he turns to Jesus and says these words; ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
Remember me. It’s a plea. Stated another way, Jesus, don’t forget me.
This is not the only time this plea is made in the Bible. These words were shouted at God by men and women who felt forgotten, abandoned by Him.
Centuries before Jesus’ crucifixion God gave a man called Samson extraordinary strength.
Samson had long hair and a short temper.
While his hair was long his strength was superhuman and with it he delivered miraculous victories for
Israel
. But as strong as he was physically, when it came to women, Samson was pathetically weak. One woman, Delilah, knew just how to stroke Samson’s ego and more, in so doing discovering the secret of his strength. Out came the number two clippers and Samson lost not just his locks but his God-given strength. Shamed, he was bound with chains and paraded before his enemies as a prize. It was not just his strength that he had lost; God, it seemed, had abandoned him.
Samson was a man in search of redemption. He was a man in search of another chance.
And so one last time, out of desperation and in seeking deliverance, Samson’s prays perhaps the most honest prayer of his life:
O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more. (Judges 16:28)
God remembers, Samson’s strength returns one last time and in his death he wins a great victory.
We are people in search of redemption, in search of a second, a third…chance at life. Like Samson, we have made mistakes.
All of us - without exception.
We are weighed down by shame, guilt or regret or pain. Is there another chance for us?
Will God remember us? Will God hear our plea for a fresh start, a new beginning? Does life, does God give us a second chance?
Late in
Israel
’s history there lived a woman called Hannah. She was married to a devout man called Elkanah. Elkanah loved Hannah dearly but Hannah still carried around with her a deep sadness. She was unable to conceive a child, an opportunity she desperately longed for. And so she poured out her soul to God in prayer:
O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. (1 Samuel 1:11)
Hannah does a deal with God.
Ever done that?
Hannah does a deal and God it seems comes through. Miraculously Hannah conceives and gives birth to a son, Samuel, which means ‘Because I asked the Lord for him.’
Many of us have asked God for something. A child. A husband, as wife. A job. Healing or restoration. We pray and we ask. We plead, we even make deals.
And heaven seems deaf to our cries, disinterested in our deals. God remains silent. When, God, will you remember me? Have you forgotten me?
Remember me. These are words mixed with hope and desperation, words of faith tarnished with doubt.
In blood-soaked agony the criminal turns to Jesus and says remember me.
This is not a polite or apologetic request. This is a desperate plea groaned out through lips parched by agony.
Remember me.
More likely than not, this man had been forgotten. Forgotten by his friends, forgotten by his family as they were repelled by the shame of his conviction and death. After he died his body was probably cast into the
Valley
of
Gehenna
just outside
Jerusalem
’s city walls where it would burn with the bodies of other criminals and the rubbish and waste of the city. His final resting place not a well-tended tomb, but the rat-infested and fire-ravaged city dump.
Gehenna is literally translated as Hell. He was traveling on a highway to hell; forever to be forgotten.
And here comes the radical part of the story. The criminal is not the only one who utters a plea from the cross that day.
In Matthew’s account of the story, we read this:
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my god, why have you forsaken
me
?”
God, have you forgotten me?
God, do you remember me?
God, have you abandoned me?
Jesus, the one who knew perfect community and love with the Father and the Spirit – the perfect community of love- was now separated from them by a chasm immeasurably wide. Jesus was not naked on the cross. He took with him burdens – a pack – weighed down, loaded up with our sin and sorrow. On the cross he struggled under our failures, our mistakes.
Centuries before Jesus’ crucifixion the prophet Isaiah predicted this:
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5-6)
In freely taking on himself our sin and sorrow, Jesus’ cry of abandonment was our collective cry; a cry of recognition that our sin our failure our guilt our shame separates us from God.
Jesus’ willing sacrifice was not a martyr’s death. It was not a heroic, but pointless act.
Jesus death was a savior’s sacrifice. It was the fullest, most complete expression of God’s love for us imaginable. Jesus death was the full and complete answer to our question, does God remember me?
And the answer to that questions, no matter our circumstances, is an emphatic ‘Yes’!
God not only remembers you, he died for you.
Only through his death on the cross could the power of our sin – our mistakes and failures, shame and regret – be defeated once and for all. Only though the cross could the power of sin and failure in our life be defeated.
When the criminal was crucified, the nails that held him there were the sins that had convicted him.
When Jesus was crucified, the nails that held him there were the sins that convict us.
When the criminal turned to Jesus and said remember me, he did not escape the inevitable death that was minutes away.
He did not escape death; but he did escape the power of it.
He did not escape pain, he did escape despair.
He did not escape suffering, he did escape hopelessness.
In response to his request to be remembered, Jesus turns to him and offers him these words, encapsulating an amazing promise:
I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
The word translated as paradise speaks literally of a lush garden with green vegetation and tumbling streams, a place of heavenly delights; a new Garden of Eden. While his body might be tossed into the fire, his life will live on in a new body in a place called
Paradise
.
God has remembered him. In fact God had never forgotten him, as he never forgets us.
As God so often does, through Jesus’ promise, God gives the criminal far more than he asked for or even expects. God has a habit of doing this.
As the saying goes, many of us live lives of quiet desperation. We look at aspects of our lives and we despair. Will I ever overcome my failures? Will I ever be free from guilt? Will the sun ever shine again?
Despair robs us of hope. In fact in many ways despair is the opposite of hope. And hope is the oxygen that is fundamental to life.
As it was for the criminal that hung alongside him, the cross of Jesus offers us an escape from despair into the joy and liberation of a hope-fuelled life.
One of my favorite illustrations that speaks of such hope comes from the life of the great Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Decades ago, for standing up against the Soviet state, he was imprisoned in one of the infamous gulags in the frozen wastes of
Siberia
.
Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.
On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the
Soviet Union
. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope.
Solzhenitsyn despaired for his future. Do you?
Samson despaired over his failures. Do you?
Hannah despaired over God’s apparent silences. Do you?
The crucified criminal despaired for his very life. Do you?
The cross of Jesus is the escape way from despair towards hope. Real hope. God fuelled hope.
The story we have heard today presents us with two starkly different responses to the cross of Jesus.
One of the criminals rejects Jesus. The other embraces Jesus.
One criminal comes with sarcasm and derision.
The other comes with openness and humility.
One comes with a command.
The other with a request.
One clings to despair.
The other clutches at hope.
One criminal ignores the possible.
The other embraces the impossible.
One receives liberation.
The other remains imprisoned.
The question I leave you with is this? Which criminal are you?
You see we are all criminals. The choice we make is which sort of criminal we will be.