The Last Sunday After Pentecost: The Reign of Christ [Proper 34], rcl yr c, 2025
JEREMIAH 23:1-6; CANTICLE 19 (LUKE 1:68-79); COLOSSIANS 1:11-20; LUKE 23:33-43
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom
Our reading from the Gospel today, where Jesus is crucified with two other criminals, is often used as a way to speak of the diversity of ways we come to be a follower of Jesus. Or, alternately, how some don’t come to follow Jesus. Because we have both of these moments on the cross—one person who decides against Jesus, and one person that decides for Jesus, choosing to follow Jesus right at what seems to be the last minute.
“One of the criminals,” we hear, “who were hanged there, kept deriding [Jesus] and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us! […] But the other [ … says of Jesus], ‘[…] this man has done nothing wrong.’” And then says to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” To whom Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
We know that changes of heart can be remarkable in their immediacy. St. Paul, as we hear the story of his decision to follow Jesus on the road to Damascus, is one of the stories of very quick turns of heart. And on the surface, we could see this criminal’s conversion, his decision to follow Jesus, as just as immediate: that there is a simple moment of turning toward Jesus, of recognizing something of just how extraordinary Jesus is: this is a man condemned, but having done nothing wrong; a man also with the power to bring us with him to heavenly places.
And while I wouldn’t scoff at the notion of sudden changes of heart—many of us have seen such things first-hand—I wonder if there is more going on here that is worth exploring. And that is, rather, that both of the criminals crucified with Jesus have seen more than we give them credit for seeing and witnessing. And that this points to the mysteriousness of conversion, the mysteriousness of changes of heart that lead some to follow, and the mysteriousness of some seeing the exact same thing as the follower, but still to reach very different conclusions about the significance of Jesus for us and for the world he came to transform.
The first time these two criminals, crucified with Jesus, enter the scene is not when they all appeared at “the place that is called the Skull,” the place where they are each lifted up onto their respective crosses. They enter the scene a bit before that. “Two others,” we read, “were led away to be put to death with [Jesus].” And this “leading away” begins just after Jesus’s trial before Pilate is completed, after Jesus has been beaten, after Pilate releases Barabbas and after he hands Jesus over to be crucified. It is then that Jesus is led away, and the criminals led away with him.
And the criminals know, perhaps having already been waiting in the wings of Pilate’s trial, that Jesus was innocent; they would have seen the effects of the beatings on Jesus’s body, may well have been witness to Jesus’s flogging, and seeing with Jesus in robes and wearing the crown of thorns that mocked the claims made for his reign as King.
From there, those two others were the first pilgrims along the Via Dolorosa, the first to share with Jesus that particular way of sorrow, that particular way of suffering, the path that took Jesus from the place of his condemnation, through Jerusalem, and to where he is put to death—and them with him.
Luke only mentions a handful of events that become for us the Stations of the Cross: Simon of Cyrene taking up Jesus’s cross, and Jesus’s address to the Daughters of Jerusalem, telling them not to weep for him, but to weep instead for themselves and for their children. Even if we didn’t add some of what has grown to be included in the tradition of the Stations of the Cross, like Jesus stumbling three times, Jesus meeting his mother, Veronica wiping Jesus’ face, and Jesus being stripped of his robes, we still have a revealing moment taking place from Pilate’s trial to being raised on the cross: a beaten, scourged, and mocked Jesus, an innocent man, is humiliated before his beloved Jerusalem; the crowds deriding and mocking Jesus, expressing their heartache by beating their breasts and crying, with others scoffing, and some simply standing by and watching.
And so the mystery we are presented, in Luke’s Gospel, is not one of instant conversion, or of an instant change of heart that leads someone to follow Jesus; but rather that two people can be witness to the very same thing, one deciding for Jesus, and another against him; and further, that someone would decide for Jesus having seen Jesus in the depths of his suffering and at the most painful and humiliating moments of his passion, when all evidence appears to be against his divinity, and for the depths of his weakness; when Jesus is most clearly most unable to give evidence of his powers to save.
This is a moment when Jesus performs no miracle, neither for himself nor for others. This is part of the mystery of faith: that Christ is crucified, and that this is, in its own way, a sufficient witness to who he is in his entirety: not simply a man born under a bad sign, but a man born under the songs of angels, chosen by God for the sake of the healing of the world. A man whose belonging in the heavenly places, and whose inhabitation of paradise, is a belonging and inhabitation of such places means that he has the power to invite even the criminal crucified with him to accompany him there.
That is: the way of the cross, where claims to his reign are mocked, where his is made to wear purple robes and crown of thorns as gestures of contempt, the way of the cross where public witness to him is deeply ambivalent as to his significance, and includes abandonment by his closest followers.
What an extraordinary thing, that this scene of suffering, mockery, and ambivalence is sufficient. The events that take place on this short road is enough for one criminal to say no to Jesus, and yet, it is also enough for another to say yes, and to affirm Jesus as King, as the one who can bear him into the age to come.
It makes for quite a different way of being a community of faith, doesn’t it. There’s a certain honesty to it. It allows us, as followers of Jesus, to be who we are: broken, and far from perfect. Humans that know heartache. A people that knows disappointment. A church that takes part in God’s Kingdom not because we can bear witness only to marvellous things in Christ—small miracles, answered prayer, solace in suffering, love of neighbour. We do bear witness to these things: to life, and justice, and goodness. We bear witness to marvellous things in Christ too.
They may be, though, a glimpse into how much more, rather than a glimpse into what is sufficient. There is a deeper, more marvellous thing at work: and that is what God accomplishes for us in Christ’s passion. And as we bear witness alongside the criminal who turns to Jesus on the cross, we bear witness to the reality that we are accompanied by Christ in our suffering. We bear witness to a Jesus who suffers with a world that both loves and rejects him. And we affirm that to follow Jesus in the way of his sorrow, our sorrow, and the sorrow of the whole world, is sufficient for the life he accomplishes for us.
To be borne with Christ in sorrow is a sufficient witness to the one who, as King of Heaven and Earth, is bearing a world of God’s own making towards a victory, but a victory seen first in his passion.
As for what else is to come: the resurrection and the life, the new creation, and a world remade according to God’s own justice: we know of this too, but we know it as how much more! How much more is this? There is grace in the new life we find in Christ, just as there is grace in the passion and the cross; for he is with us through all: with us in suffering, with us in glory, and with us in the age to come.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.