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Last Sunday in Ordinary Time
~ CHRIST THE KING ~ November 25, 2007 ~ CYCLE C
REMEMBER ME ~ The Text:
Luke
23:35-43
Who would we be without
memories? Memory connects us to our past, and helps us stay oriented to
our present. Which is why the disease of Alzheimer's is so terribly
frightening. Without that little memory chip in the brain, we begin to
be strangers to our own families, and lost in our own homes. What a
dreadful thing for that ability to remember to gradually slip away, like
water leaking out of a bucket with holes in the bottom.
And not just individuals need
good memory, nations need good memory. As the historians remind us,
"those who do not learn from the past or doomed to repeat it." So
national memory and urgency is stirred in times of war by slogans like,
Remember the Maine! or Remember Pearl Harbor! or
Remember the Alamo! And we decorate our cities with parks and
statues to commemorate the leaders and events of the past, structures
designed to help new generations of Americans avoid national amnesia.
Those of you who have visited our national mall in Washington D.C. will
recall seeing the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the
Washington Memorial, and the various memorial structures honoring the
veterans of our national wars.
We need our memories. And we
also want to be remembered too, don't we? Great leaders often wonder how
they will be remembered. What will be the legacy that survives their
turn in power? And so former presidents establish presidential libraries
to collect and preserve the documents and records of their time in
office. And cruel dictators like Sadaam Hussein erect statues of
themselves to reinforce their presence while in office, and to preserve
their memory after they are gone. Even ordinary lives like ours seek to
be remembered in some small way. We name our children after their
ancestors so that the family names live on. We give money to a college,
out of love and gratitude for that learning institution, yes, but also
in exchange for having a building or scholarship named after us. And at
the last, we want our name engraved on a granite headstone in a
cemetery, so that our name will not be forgotten too soon after we die.
No one wants to be forgotten. No one.
And that
goes for the two men who exchange a brief conversation one day on a hill
outside the ancient city of Jerusalem. Their story is told in our Gospel
lesson today from Saint Luke. The two men are Jesus and an unknown
thief. The two men could not be more different in character. Jesus was
the perfect, sinless, Son of God, the Messiah of Jewish expectation. And
the thief was just that, a thief. He is identified up to this point only
in terms of his worst moment and lowest character trait—that of a thief.
And now he hangs on a cross, just another in a countless string of
capital punishment executions carried out by the Roman government in its
effort to keep the peace. He is doomed to be quickly forgotten after his
torturous death, thrown into an unmarked potter's field of forgotten and
broken dreams.
But Jesus hangs on a cross
beside this thief. Of course Jesus does not deserve this death, having
committed no crime. His crucifixion is a mockery of justice, the result
of the cruel schemes and weak leaders in the justice system. But Jesus
also does not want to be forgotten. The night before this crucifixion,
Jesus had gathered his followers and instituted the Eucharist, a holy
act of remembrance still practiced by the Church to celebrate the
presence and power of the living Christ. And engraved on many church
communion tables and altars are the words of Jesus from that first
Eucharist, "Do this in remembrance of me." No one wants to be
forgotten, including Jesus himself.
In the darkness of that bleak
day hanging beside each other at Calvary, this thief summoned his
strength and his hope to ask of Jesus only one act of grace, "Jesus,
remember me when you come into your Kingdom." It was an audacious
request, when you think about it. But it was also a profound act of
faith. For at the moment when everyone else watching this scene— the
bored detail of Roman soldiers, the mocking assortment of religious
leaders, the curious crowd of bystanders—when these people saw only the
final hours of Jesus life, this repentant thief dared to believe Jesus
would live on after death. How else could he think Jesus would be able
to remember him? And when others that day saw the sign over the head of
Jesus that read, "The King of the Jews," they saw only a cruel and
ridiculous joke. But this thief dares to believe that the sign is not a
joke at all, nor a mistaken identity. He is convinced that Jesus, even
now, is going to come into his Kingdom. He does not know how this will
happen, for obviously both he and Jesus are within hours of death. The
thief can offer nothing to Christ in exchange for this request. He
cannot "turn over a new leaf' and promise to live a better life. He is
out of time, out of options, out of excuses. He does not ask for Jesus
to avenge his death at the hands of these Roman soldiers. He does not
ask to sit on some throne beside Jesus in the afterlife. He asks only to
be remembered when Jesus comes to his rightful throne. He just does not
want to be forgotten, and is willing to trust that somehow, in some
mysterious way, Jesus might be the person who would remember him after
death closed out this dreadful final day.
"Jesus, remember me when you
come into your kingdom." Suddenly it occurs to us that this thief is
playing our part in this drama. He is saying our lines, and speaking our
hopes, to Christ. For we do not want to be forgotten either. And we all
know, deep down, that the buildings donated to the college will someday
crumble, the engraved granite tombstone will eventually wear smooth and
illegible by the outside elements, and that after our grandchildren or
great-grandchildren have died, probably no one will be left who can
actually remember our names or any of the details of our lives.
And so the answer of Jesus to
this thief, and to all of us who listen with baited breath and honest
faith for His response, is the ultimate word of grace and comfort "Today
you will be with me in Paradise." It was even more than the thief asked,
and certainly more than he deserved. That Jesus would remember us when
all human memories have ceased would be incredible enough, wouldn't it?
But Jesus offers more. He promises that those who trust him with this
type of gallant faith will actually be with Him after death.
Amazing,
just amazing grace is this.
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