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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Pretend that you were taking your family to Jerusalem, and as you were trekking up the hill to Jerusalem, because it sits on a hill, you notice that nearby were three crosses, three evil people that had been crucified there. And your son or daughter asks you, “What’s going on over there, Daddy? Why are those men up on those trees?” And you explain to them that they have done something very, very bad. Well, they would not be up there. And you quote them the passage from the Old Testament: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
So how many evildoers were crucified that day? One, two, three? The answer is three. You and I know, as believers, Jesus Christ was one of the three. And yet, he who knew no sin, as Paul writes, became sin for us. The text said, “And the scripture was fulfilled that says…”
So really, there were three upon that hill. Two justly so. One not so. That one not. It is interesting indeed that out of the mouths of these two criminals, evildoers, actually come a great confession of faith as to who Jesus is. One of the thieves or criminals or evildoers does not believe it, but he proclaims truth. The other does believe it and he proclaims truth as well.
The robbers, which is kind of a nice way of saying an evildoer, who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. And one of the criminals who was hanged railed at Jesus saying, “Are you not the Christ?” He calls him the very thing that Jesus said that he was, the Messiah. And that the prophets had been proclaiming about him. And that all were saying about him. He proclaims the truth. And then he adds, “Save yourself and us. Fix this problem. You’re a Savior, aren’t you? Isn’t that not what your name Jesus means? Savior? Save yourself and us. Fix this issue.”
Many times in your and my life, we want the solution to our problem here and now. And God typically has us wait, doesn’t he? And the waiting is not very fun. And it’s very, very arduous. And it pushes us far more than we wish to be pushed. But that is how God is, isn’t it? He wants us dependent upon him, solely dependent upon him, not upon ourselves. And he does that by encouraging us to persevere and not always get the easy answer quickly.
The other, whose name tradition says is Dismas, Dismas. He’s the one that dies a believer. He rails back at the criminal. Now, for a moment, you have to almost giggle to yourself. These three men on our crosses, and they’re arguing, the two of them, about who’s right and who’s wrong. We spend a lot of time arguing with other people about who’s right and who’s wrong, don’t we? Because we want to be right rather than repentant always. We want to be proven rather than forgiven. We want to be reconciled, really, is what we should.
So the one, Dismas, says, rails at the other and says, “Do you not fear God?” “Fear God” is not a statement said in lightness. Remember, their arms are crucified. The only thing they have that they can move much is their lips and their mouth. And he’s calling upon him, “Don’t you fear God? Do you not realize who’s in control of this whole thing? Cosmos in which you and I think or thought that we could move through our life without any concern for somebody else, including God? Don’t you fear God?”
And then he asks, “Since you’re under the same sentence of condemnation?” He’s reminding him, you who has a big mouth, who’s over there crucified just like me, you’re railing? You’re actually railing at this one? And then he adds this: “We indeed justly are under this same sentence of condemnation. We’re receiving the due reward for our deeds.”
When you and I receive our due reward for our deeds, we don’t like it because it’s a bed that we have to lie in that we have made ourselves. In God’s kingdom, there is always forgiveness, always forgiveness. But we live with consequences in this world, consequences of our sin, consequences of other people’s sins. Consequences, we live with consequences.
David lived with consequences too, didn’t he? King David had to look outside of his window and see those two freshly dug graves, one about this big and one a normal size, both of his sons. That was a consequence of David’s sin, and yet David knew he was forgiven. And if you and I think that David didn’t wake every day and that scab was not picked by Satan, we’re fooling ourselves, right? That is how Satan works, and that is how our own guilt works.
Forgiveness is always there. So when this thief, Dismas, tells the other, “This man has done no wrong,” he’s confessing truth as much as the other criminal did. He’s the innocent one. He was numbered with the transgressors, as Isaiah said, and yet he’s the innocent one. The punishment that Jesus received was not his due him. It was the consequence of your and my sin.
Isn’t it interesting? The look of crucifixion is a very ugly, ugly look. And Dismas turns to the one who is as ugly as he is on that tree, as malformed as his body and contorted as he, and says, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom?”
Brothers and sisters, he was not believing upon Jesus by his sight because Jesus looked as pathetic as he. He was believing because of the word spoken about Jesus. He believed, and he knows that this one who is dying a death just like his is really the king, the king of the universe. Just like in that middle window at the very top, there’s that crown, the crown of God, Christ the king, Jesus.
And yet when you look at that cross, it doesn’t look too kingly. It looks very beggardly. It looks very cursed. That’s the consequence of your and my sin that you and I will never have to endure. That’s the consequence of not fearing God, which you and I will never have to endure.
The just really would be that you and I would be crucified and die the death of the cursed one. But that’s the forgiveness that God gives to you because of him.
Now, isn’t this interesting? Paul, later on, talks about our baptism, being joined in a death like Christ and being raised in a resurrection like Christ. Dismas? Dismas is the only believer who died a death just like Jesus did, crucified. And Dismas, though, is like you and me, raised today.
Okay. When Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” he was not talking about a future day. He was talking here and now. He was talking the moment you close your eyes in death, you will awaken in life eternal. Today. Not someday. Today. And you’ll be with me. Me whom you see. With your eyes as they grow dim, with death approaching, you will see with eyes full of life. And the body that you have that is contorted will no longer be contorted. It will be new and fresh. And the skin that has been whipped and beaten will be fresh as a baby.
Dismas was repentant, dying the death of Christ and rising in Christ’s resurrection like you and I do in our baptism. And we never will know whether that’s his name or not, but we will see him in heaven just as we will see our Lord with our own eyes.
In the name of Jesus, who hung unjustly for you and me. Amen.
