Today, Paradise

Read: John 18:1--19:42

 

Good Friday evening - March 29, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

There is a conversation which I have had a number of times over the years when a person's life is nearing its end and we both know it.

“I'm ready,” the person says, and then goes on to unpack what that means.

It is not just that the person has lived a good number of years.

It is not just that there are no more mountains to conquer, or grandchildren to see on to the next stage of their lives, or whatever else.

It is, rather, that the person has finally sorted things out.

Finally it is clear that the one things which matters is the connection with the Lord Jesus Christ which was given at Holy Baptism and has been present this whole lifetime.

“Now I get it,” the person is telling me, actually meaning, “now I recognize that I've had it all along!”

 

“Someday, with Jesus,” has often been expressed as our hope.

You know how this works:

no matter how difficult things are right now, the expectation of a bright and final future keeps us going.

 

The good old “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by”.

But Jesus does not leave things there.

When the thief turns his head to Jesus and says “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingly power.” Jesus reply is not “Sure, sure, later.”

Here they are near the end of an absolutely brutal execution, in some of the most horrible agony ever devised by cruel mankind.

And Jesus surprises him by saying “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Today.

The future has suddenly crashed in upon the present.

Not someday, but today.

The verb tense is future – “will be”, but it is overwhelmed by that adverb “today.”

 

That word should stir up all of our memories from the Old Testament of the Day of the Lord,

--the day long-expected,

--the day when Messiah would finally put all things right,

--the day when the enemies are crushed and God wins for us the great battles.

 

God has announced that the very day of dying on the cross is the time of the great battle.

“How fierce and dreadful was the strife when life and death contended” is the way that we will remember that in our hymn on Sunday morning.

 

And there is a second way to understand the power of these words Today and Paradise.

And that is to recognize that they are pointing not so much to a time and place later, but to a relationship which is entered now.

Paradise is whenever and wherever we recognize that we are truly with Jesus.

 

Oh, yes, in heaven we won't have all of the distractions that we have now.

Our cares and worries that are so multiplied now will be laid aside, but the Christian faith is participation now in Paradise.

The criminal on the cross began his paradise the moment in which he recognized that the one beside him in horrible agony on the cross was his Lord in the kingdom of God.

 

1,600 years ago St. Ambrose said, “More abundant is the favor shown than the request made.”

or more simply,

He got lots more than what he requested.

 

What sort of God do we have?

One who sits aloof from the struggle and pain of daily life?  No.

He is with us in the very worst that life can throw at us, and tells us Today...Paradise.

It is a promise acted out on Calvary, and anytime that we will hear it with joy  in our lives.

 

One woman wrote her pastor:

“This terrible illness has been the best thing that has ever happened to me, as far as my relationship with God is concerned.

Since I have been sick, I've sorted out the important stuff, my family has come together, and I recognize a closeness with God.”

 

The Russian writer of a century ago, Leo Tolstoy, wrote of his conversion to Christianity this way:

“I did not understand that life.

But suddenly I heard the words of Jesus and understood them,...and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life, and the joy of life undisturbed by death.

It does not now, nor will it ever, get the last word.

 

What is Christ's gift from the cross?

--that we are not abandoned, even in the worst of times.

 

At the end of the service this evening, we are all invited to walk in procession around the nave, the way of the cross.

As we quietly pass each of the nine stations, remember the words of Thursday and Friday,

words such as: ...for you...for forgiveness...God's costly love...today...paradise...it is finished.

It is Good News,  not just for the close of our lives, but for us every day all along the way!  Amen.