‘Today you will be with me in Paradise.’ (Luke 23:43)

During Jesus’s lifetime, He told a parable to answer the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ (Luke 10:29) In that parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the most famous stories He ever told, He demonstrated that we have to look beyond geography, race or religion and that everyone is our neighbour. On the cross, He again demonstrated this Himself, for this promise to the dying thief is His personal response to His next-door neighbour in crucifixion; it is the living embodiment of this parable.

The thief on the cross is acutely aware of the need for salvation. He is also aware – unlike the other thief and unlike the vast majority of the crowd – that Jesus’s death is not the end of the story, for his request is ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Luke 23:42), a request which seems frankly ludicrous in the context. They are both dying. How, then, can Jesus come into a kingdom or be in any position to help the criminal?

This tableau shows us clearly that physical death is not the end. Life after death is of paramount importance to us, for if we are eternal beings, it matters enormously to know that the end of our physical bodies is not the end of life. Jesus promises the thief that his life will go on and that Paradise is real. Moreover, although there are many things we do not understand about eternal life and Paradise or heaven, we are assured here that this will include being with Jesus. ‘What more do we need to know besides this: that something happens to us after we die and that Jesus will be there?’ Eugene Peterson asks. (‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 250) In commenting on the ‘today’ aspect of Jesus’s answer, he adds, ‘Eternity is not perpetual future, but perpetual presence.’ When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it is God’s presence with us that is promised. (Ps 23:4)

Many of us fear death, or at least, we fear dying. The process of ageing and becoming frail and ill often fills us with foreboding. The indignity and helplessness of dying can rob us of peace and hope. We fear being dependent on others for our basic needs; we fear being alone and forsaken. But Jesus reassures us that there is hope beyond the grave. We do well this week not only to focus on the pain and agony of death but on the hope of resurrection. Even as He hung dying on the tree, Jesus offered life to His neighbour. He does the same for us and longs for us to hold out His life to others. What lies ahead is so much greater than we can possibly imagine.

Garry spoke from Luke 19:28-44 tonight, commenting especially on how the expectations of the majority of the crowds in Israel were not ultimately fulfilled by Jesus. When He entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the crowds were convinced that the Messianic prophecy (Zech 9) was being fulfilled (as it indeed was), but their expectations were of a king who would deliver them from Roman rule. They saw in Jesus someone with authority and power who would drive out their oppressors and lead them to victory (as the crowds had hoped earlier during the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:14-15)). Their hopes and expectations were based on kingly psalms such as Ps 2, Ps 45 and Ps 110 and prophecies such as Is 42:1 which promised that the Messiah would bring justice to the nations; as a result, they expected a warrior and victorious king who would subjugate all opposition.

People also were expecting the Prophet whose arrival Moses had foretold (Deut 18:15). Passages such as John 6:14 and Matt 21:10-11 make it clear that they expected this Prophet to come and speak to them directly, but despite high expectations, they could not reconcile these promises with other passages (eg Isaiah 52 & 53) which also spoke of a Suffering Servant. To them, the different aspects of victory and suffering could not be reconciled and so their view of the Messiah was distorted (rather like trying to draw a straight line graph from points without realising that the graph in question was a sine graph!)

Despite the seeming acclaim and adulation of the crowd, the majority were soon disappointed in Jesus. Many people continue to be disappointed in Him. God does not always do what they want or expect; they experience hurt and let down, unanswered prayer and are frustrated by hypocrisy. If we go through life with the belief that ‘bad things shouldn’t happen to good people’ or force our expectations onto God, we are very soon going to be disappointed in Him. Job and Joseph are clear examples of suffering even when in right relationship with God, but so often we act like spoilt children, demanding our own way.

The Bible teaches that suffering was necessary for Christ (Heb 2:10, Heb 5:8) and if Jesus suffered so that He might learn obedience and be made perfect or complete, it is inevitable that we too must learn obedience through suffering. Rom 8:17-18 makes it clear that suffering is an inevitable part of the maturing process that is ongoing.

God does not promise us an easy ride, but He does make promises which He keeps:

• He promises salvation for all who call on Him (Acts 2:21)
• He promises to be with us all the time (Matt 28:20)
• He promises that no one can snatch us out of His hand (John 10:28)
• He promises to limit what comes our way (1 Cor 10:13)
• He promises us an eternal inheritance (Eph 1:14)
• He promises to love us and that nothing can separate us from that love (Rom 8:35-39)
• He promises that we will be heirs with Christ (Gal 4:7)
• He promises that we will reign with Him one day (2 Tim 2:12)
• He promises to keep His promises (1 Cor 1:9)
• Most of all, He promises us Himself (Heb 8:10)

As Jesus entered Jerusalem on that day – perfectly fulfilling the word of God (because God is faithful!) – He did not meet the expectations of the people. He was, as far as they were concerned, a disappointment. However, He wants us to take us past our imperfect, inadequate, limited, constrained, parochial expectations and blow our minds with His awesome plans, plans which are far greater than we could ever imagine, plans that will prosper us beyond our wildest dreams (Jer 29:11) and which are immeasurably more than anything our hearts could ever desire.

Today being Palm Sunday, Stephen spoke from Matt 21:1-18 this morning. Normally we view Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the crowd’s acknowledgment of Him as King. The celebration  element is prevalent in the narrative: we see Jesus riding on a donkey with crowds shouting ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ and placing palm leaves and cloaks on the road before Him. Such moments remind us of the ‘red carpet’ treatment accorded to celebrities nowadays, but if we ponder the story further, we see how the story does not finish in the way the crowds expected. Within days, Jesus is reviled and crucified as a common criminal, even though He was indeed King. God often works in ways that are totally unexpected to human reasoning.

The story is also a reminder, however, of the sacrifices God requires of us. As the people gave lavishly, we too are urged to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1-2). We have an opportunity to lay our burdens and fears down before Jesus and to give Him our sacrifice of praise. We relinquish our desire to be in control and accept that if He is our King, we have to live our lives every day in acknowledgment of this fact. It is easy to view Palm Sunday as a one-off event, the precursor to the events of Holy Week, but it is a time for us to give of ourselves freely to God, understanding that sacrifice, once given, cannot be reclaimed.

The next words from the cross we will consider is the prayer recorded in Luke 23:54: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’

The ‘them’ of this prayer includes those who were actively involved in the death of Jesus: Caiaphas, the High Priest, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, the soldiers ‘just doing their job’… but it also includes Judas the betrayer, the eleven disciples who deserted Jesus and fled… and all mankind, whose sins were the reason Jesus had to die at all. I too need to be included in Jesus’s prayer for forgiveness. We all do.

Forgiveness had been a key theme of the teaching of Jesus throughout His lifetime (see Matt 6:12, 14-15, Matt 18:21-35, Luke 7:36-50.) It is fitting that it remained relevant and was practised even during the agony of crucifixion. Forgiveness and justice may seem at odds with each other at times. We often say we want justice rather than forgiveness when we have been wronged, but justice is not the last word. Forgiveness is the last word, and as we pray for forgiveness as Jesus did, we ‘train our spirits in compassion, not revenge; in understanding, not irritation; in acceptance of a brother or sister sinner, not rejection.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 247)

Forgiveness is alien to our human nature. We hold on to grudges; we remember wrongs done to us; we stew in bitterness and resentment. But forgiveness, another facet of God’s grace and generosity, unlocks the door and lets us out of the oven. Jesus knew that it was God’s plan for Him to suffer and die, for only through that agony could the world be saved. He could see beyond the human scheming and plotting to God’s purposes being worked out in His life. When we realise that no weapon forged against us can prevail (Is 54:17), when we understand that God’s purposes are often worked out through suffering and pain but that even what men mean for evil can be turned to good by God (Gen 50:20, Rom 8:28), we find that we can forgive. When we withhold forgiveness, we feel that we are punishing the wrongdoer, but actually, we are the ones who become enslaved by our wrong attitudes and broken by our disobedience. Only as we forgive can we enter the wide open spaces God has provided for us. Only as we are forgiven for all the wrong we have ever done can we know joy and lightness of spirit.

The first cry of Jesus from the cross which we will consider is His cry from Ps 22:1: ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’ (Matt 27:46)

It is a cry of dereliction, a cry of desolation. Christians traditionally understand this prayer not only as an indication of how we often feel – abandoned by God in difficult times – but of the weight of what Jesus had to endure in order to bring about our salvation. The Protestant reformer Calvin wrote ‘If Christ died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual… Unless his soul shared in the punishment, he would have been the Redeemer of bodies only.’ (Calvin’s ‘Institutes’ II xvi 10) Jesus, who had previously only known the close fellowship of the Father (John 16:32), was alone as God the Holy One could not look on sin. Again, this is a mystery we cannot fully comprehend, for we know that ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them’ (2 Cor 5:19) at this time, but the fact remains that Jesus experienced aloneness and separation from the Father in ways that, because of His sacrifice, we will never have to. He knows more about our suffering, pain and heartache than we can ever imagine:

‘We may faint and we may sink
Feel the pain and near the brink
But the dark begins to shrink
When you find the one who knows

Today is Palm Sunday and as we enter the final week of Jesus’s life and focus on His death and ultimately on His resurrection, we are aware that we are entering a mystery we can never fully comprehend. The fact that Jesus chose to suffer and die for the sins of the world is at the very heart of the gospel as we saw on Thursday; we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling-block for Jews and foolishness for Gentiles, but Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). Nonetheless, it is only as we embrace the paradox of God that we can enter in to salvation; as Eugene Peterson comments ‘death and glory do not seem to be natural bedfellows. But in Jesus they are.’ (‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 218)

This week, we will focus our gaze specifically on the cross and on the words that Jesus uttered on the cross. The ‘seven words from the cross‘ of Jesus are often preached about and commented on, for every word that Jesus uttered helps us to see the Father heart of God more clearly and bring life and truth to our lives. As we pray, it’s good to have the prayers of Jesus to guide us and lead us. It’s also notable that although the death of Christ is unique in bringing salvation to the whole world, He does require His disciples to take up their cross daily, deny themselves and die to self in order to be able to follow Him. (Matt 16:24) Rom 6:5-11 makes it clear that we have to enter into His death in order to be able to enter into His life. ‘Death is a nonnegotiable element in being a human creature,’ Eugene Peterson writes. ‘It is also nonnegotiable in being a follower of Jesus.’ (ibid., P 242) Most of us squirm at this thought. Doctors and society as a whole do their best to keep physical death at bay; we believe that if we follow this diet or do that exercise, we can postpone the inevitable. Many disciples are interested only in success and victory, rather like the crowds who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with great enthusiasm, but who were unprepared for a Messiah who would die within the week. We have to understand that paradox is at the very heart of the gospel, that the way to life inevitably must pass through death.

‘Cross and resurrection are the south and north poles, true gospel polarities of a single, undivided, salvation world,‘ Eugene Peterson goes on to say (ibid. , P 242-3). As we contemplate the prayers of Jesus on the cross, we are reminded that His obedience even to the shame and suffering of the cross led to joy. (Heb 12:1-3) That, too, will always be the case.