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Gospel: Luke 23: 35-43
The rulers sneered at Jesus and said,
“He saved others, let him save himself
if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.”
Even the soldiers jeered at him.
As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
“If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.”
Above him there was an inscription that read,
“This is the King of the Jews.”
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,
“Are you not the Christ?
Save yourself and us.”
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,
“Have you no fear of God,
for you are subject to the same condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,
but this man has done nothing criminal.”
Then he said,
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
He replied to him,
“Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Many of you know that the crucifix suspended above the tabernacle in this church was carved to scale; it’s the approximate height and weight of Christ nailed to his cross on Calvary.
While kneeling in the pews, you also see him at the same angle from which his mother Mary and the Apostle John gazed upon him. They beheld the humbled, exhausted, anguished body of our King.
The crucifixion of Jesus was so horrific that Christians did not depict it for another four centuries. In our time, however, crucifixes are so common that many have become desensitized to the nature of our Lord’s sacrifice.
If we removed Jesus from the cross and imagined a sweet, innocent puppy there, instead, we’d be horrified.
But this is no puppy; this is God in the flesh!
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In Luke’s account of the crucifixion, after Jesus was mocked, crowned with thorns, lashed thirty-nine times, spit upon, nearly beaten to death, and nailed to a cross, surrounded by people who hated him, the first words he spoke were words of forgiveness.
“Father, forgive them.”
Not just Judas. Not just Peter and the others who left him. But the soldiers, his executioners, the criminals dying on his right and his left, and us.
All of us.
In a sense, all of humanity was crucified on that gory, glorious day.
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Crucified next to Jesus were two criminals, who break out in an argument.
On Christ’s left is the unrepentant thief, who draws precious air into his lungs only to add to the mockery of Jesus. Without any bargaining power of his own, he demands that Christ serve him.
“Are you not the Christ?” he cries out. “Save yourself and us!” We might re-interpret his words to say, “Jesus, put a stop to this madness! Pull me out of this grave, which I myself have made!”
Flanked on the Lord’s right is another criminal. Only he is repentant. Tradition tells us his name was Dismas. He does not ask to be freed, only remembered. “Jesus,” he says, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
It seems the grim reality of death led Dismas to faith – the fruit of that faith being hope and repentance. “Remember me.”
The Lord answers Dismas’ prayer, assuring him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” And so Dismas becomes the first person in the Gospels to enter into heavenly glory, even before the Blessed Mother and the Apostle John, who stand and watch.
Often as we age, we become more like Dismas to the extent that our priorities are slowly distilled down to what truly matters. “Jesus, remember me.”
Yet, even from the cross, Jesus remains a divisive figure. One man accepts his King. The other mocks him.
This drama on Calvary begs the question: “When we suffer like these two thieves, are we drawn towards or away from the Lord?”
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While this argument between the two thieves on Calvary unfolds, Jesus himself is riled with temptation, bringing his public ministry full circle.
Immediately after his baptism, the Spirit drove him into the desert, where he prayed and fasted for forty days and forty nights. At the end of that harrowing journey, he was tested by Satan three times.
Luke tells us that after Jesus successfully resisted the devil, “Satan departed until an opportune time.”
Now he has returned.
Here, at the end of Christ’s earthly life, Satan returns to test him in three different ways:
Through the Lord’s friends – even his Father – who seem to have abandoned him; through the soldiers who crowned him with thorns, mocking his divinity; and through the unrepentant thief who refused Christ’s mercy.
The power of evil may not be very creative, but it remains quite effective. Satan’s goal was to embarrass Jesus as he pined for air, to test his will, and to lure him off of the cross, making even the Lord wonder, “Was this all for nothing?”
We, too, face different temptations that keep coming back to us at the most opportune moments in life. Like Jesus, we either resist them and remain faithful, giving glory to our Father, or we yield in human weakness to the desires of our flesh.
As Saint Paul himself lamented, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.”
Words which Dismas, the repentant thief, could’ve said himself. “I do what I hate.”
Words which, perhaps, we also say when tempted from time to time.
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In this Eucharist, may we pray for the grace to live ever more like Jesus, “who loved us and gave himself for us.”
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Image credits: (1) Christianity.com (2) National Catholic Register (3) Heartlight.org