Today, we observe Palm Sunday. On this day, we remember Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. You all remember the story, right? Jesus has spent three years traveling around the Galilean countryside, preaching to the people, teaching them, eating and drinking with them, and healing them. Then, in the third year, he made his way to Jerusalem, along with his disciples and other Jewish pilgrims to celebrate the Passover Feast. By now, Jesus has developed quite a widespread reputation. He is both famous, and infamous. So when he arrives at the city gate, the Jewish pilgrims gathered there are elated to see him, and they welcome him to Jerusalem much like they would welcome a conquering king, returning from battle. This is the man who has healed their friends and family; the man who has raised people from the dead. He is a hero. And yet, by the end of the week, this same crowd has turned on Jesus. The great admiration has turned into great condemnation. And in this little vignette from the cross that we heard just a few moments ago, we get a glimpse of why.
It is said that a person is known by the company he keeps. In life and in death, Jesus associated with sinners. Even as he hangs here on the cross, he offers words of hope and freedom to a convicted criminal. And Luke wants to make sure that we know of this conversation between Jesus and the criminal because for Luke it was important to highlight Jesus’ concern for the least, the last, and the lost. Yet, it was this particular behavior of Jesus that really irked the religious people. The leaders of the day had worked hard to get where they were in the religious establishment, and they didn’t like this idea that just anybody could belong to God.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus was surrounded by Pharisees and scribes who were constantly grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus even allowed a prostitute to wash his feet with her tears. He called tax collectors and down-right sinners to be his disciples. He touched lepers and ate with unclean people. And to share a meal with someone in Jesus’ day was a sign of deep and abiding friendship. Jesus was saying, “These people are my friends!” We see this kind of association throughout his ministry. And the people responded.
In Jesus’ day, nonreligious people generally did not like associating with religious people. They likely felt they had to watch their language and pretend to be something they weren’t because they didn’t want to feel the judgment and scorn of the religious people. It’s still that way today, isn’t it? Many non-religious, or nominally religious people might consider going to church, until they think about what it feels like when that walk into the church—and it doesn’t feel good. The preacher seems to talk down to people like them, they don’t know the words to the songs or prayers; all of it makes them feel small. But when Jesus was around non-religious people, they didn’t feel small. That’s because these were the people Jesus loved the most, these were the people Jesus came to serve. Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus told the religious leaders, “The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” And even as Jesus died, he was carrying out this mission statement and associating with sinners.
So we come to this moment at Golgotha; three men hanging on crosses, suffering and dying together. This scene of Jesus and the two criminals is among the most powerful in all of Scripture. Jesus, the only fully righteous and sinless human being, had his final conversation with a criminal and thug who was rethinking life in response to Jesus’ character and mercy. And Jesus offered the man eternal life. He said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Do you see how important reaching lost people was—and is—to Jesus? It was what drove him to the cross, it was what caused the Palm Sunday crowds to turn on him. So that in his dying he might save the human race from self-destruction, self-worship, and sin; and so that in his resurrection he might save us from death.
So what does that mean for us? I think it all comes down to this question: Do people who do not know Jesus feel comfortable around you? Because, you see, even this hardened criminal hanging next to Jesus sensed in him something so approachable that he was bold enough to ask Jesus to “remember him in the kingdom.” Do people feel so comfortable around you, do they feel valued and accepted, or do they feel small? Are you willing to associate with people who might be considered riff-raff, and would you show them kindness and compassion? Because that’s what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Just think about what would happen if every one of us who professes to be a Christian reached out to those who are lost and showed them love and compassion in Jesus’ name! How the world would change! It would be like Paradise!!!
Indeed, we might imagine the Paradise of which Jesus speaks to the criminal as a place, but what Jesus was primarily trying to convey to the thief on the cross is the great mercy that God shows; particularly for the nobodies, and the ne’er-do-wells, and the sinners. Even as a criminal was dying on a cross for his crimes, Jesus was offering him salvation. We would do well to soak in the magnitude of this action. Because, you see, Jesus didn’t say, “Before I can offer you salvation, I need to make sure you fully understand some things: Do you believe in the Trinity? Do you believe that I am fully God and fully human? Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God? Have you been baptized? Have you accepted me into your heart?” Jesus didn’t do that; Jesus didn’t pull out his grade book and check the boxes. The man asked Jesus to remember him, and Jesus said, “Today. It will happen today.” Jesus saw that this man was reaching toward him, and he offered him paradise in return.
Now, I’m not suggesting that understanding Christian doctrine and being baptized are not important; but what we see here is that Jesus looked at a man who had just turned to him in that moment, and that was enough. The man didn’t know Christian doctrine, but he had faith the size of a mustard seed, and that was enough for Jesus to say, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
We see in Jesus’ dying words what we see throughout his life, that he wanted to save. He came proclaiming a God of the second chance. We Christians today are a lot like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, we are pretty good at making decisions for God about all the people we think aren’t going to be in heaven. But how many of those people we’ve already ruled out have as much faith and Christian doctrine as the thief on the cross did? This thief had faith the size of a mustard seed, and it was enough; Jesus showed him mercy. And I pray to God that this is precisely how he will see each of us: looking beyond all the things we have done wrong to see that we longed to be with him and that we put our trust in him; just like that thief hanging next to Jesus 2,000 years ago. And really, that is the good news of the gospel, the wonderful good news of this passage in particular; God shows mercy to each of us!
In fact, Jesus loves us so much that he invites us to join him in Paradise. The Greek word for Paradise in this verse is a transliteration of a Persian word that was used in ancient times to refer to a king’s garden—which, would have been a walled garden that was a place of profound beauty with gardens, trees, and water features. Doesn’t this sound wonderful? It’s not just that Jesus frees us from our imprisonment to sin, or our guilt for wrongdoing, but he actually invites us to spend eternity with God in God's own garden. That really does sound like paradise, doesn’t it?
There was a doctor who made house calls back in the day when that was what doctors did. He took his dog with him in his horse and buggy. One day he visited a man who was terminally ill, and as he went into the man’s house, he left his dog on the front step. The dying man said to the doctor, “Doc, what’s it going to be like—heaven—what will it be like? At that moment the doctor’s dog began to scratch at the door, whimpering and whining to get in. The doc stopped and said, “Do you hear that?”
“Yes,” the man replied.
The doctor continued, “That’s my dog. He has never been inside your house. He doesn’t know what’s on the other side of this door. All he knows is that his master is in here, and if his master is in here, it must be okay.”
Through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection, Jesus made a way into the Master’s presence. Jesus has opened the door to the king’s garden, and the first person he invited to join him in paradise was a hardened criminal, a thief on the cross. “Today,” Jesus said, “you will be with me in paradise.” There were no required courses, no special words, no waiting period, just a statement of belief and the criminal received God’s mercy through Jesus Christ. These words of Jesus from the cross point us toward his mission—a mission that is ours, too: to seek and to save those who are lost. That includes even those who, to us, seem hopelessly lost. These words call us to be like the thief whose heart was moved by seeing the crucified Jesus, and to lift our voices in prayer with him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
If we can utter even those few words in faith, then we can experience the depth of God’s mercy in the paradise that was opened by Jesus on the cross; a wonderful, beautiful life in the garden of God’s presence.
