Psalm 126: Strength from Past Blessings

INTRODUCTION

Several years ago I took a course at St. Luke’s Hospital about spiritual care of sick people. Our instructor was a Catholic deacon who was a chaplain at St. Luke’s.

His name was John. One of the suggestions John gave us for conversing with patients was to encourage them to remember the “good times.”

Most of us have good memories—memories of loving and being loved, of gifts given and gifts received, memories of successes—and even bittersweet memories of sorrows bravely endured and battles fought.

Can you remember the happiest day of your life?

For me, I would have to say that three days were “the happiest day” of my life.

The first happiest day of my life was the day I was discharged from the army. I felt that if I were any happier I would burst. I was only in the army for 21 months, but it seemed a long time. I was in Korea, far from those I loved. There was a war going on—a war which ended while I was there. I think I was a good soldier, but I wasn’t a very happy soldier.

The second happiest day of my life was the day Charlotte and I were married. It was a dream come true. I had not thought I would marry. When someone asked me why I had never married, I would say, “The desirable are not obtainable and the obtainable are not desirable.” I really doubted that the girl of my dreams would want to marry me. So I was 27 when I was married. That was old in those days.

The third happiest day of my life was the day I brought Charlotte home from the hospital after a 2-month-long illness so serious that we had been sure she would die. I had strong doubts about the reality of God, but I clung to the faith of loving friends from our church, who gathered around me and cheered me with their prayers.

When she came home it was like she had come back from the dead. That was the most educational experience of my life.

Sometimes what is bitter to endure is sweet to recall.

I want to read to you a favorite Psalm in which the psalmist recalls such a happy time in the life of his nation.

Psalm 126

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb!

May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy!

Those who go forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing their sheaves with them.

I. Here is the background of this psalm.

A. In 587 B.C. Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians.

The people of the nation—except the very poor—were marched into captivity--hundreds of miles away to Babylonia.

Psalm 137 tells of their grief when some of their pagan neighbors taunted them, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” The psalmist writes:

How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

The years went by. The people settled down in Babylon and made a living for themselves, raised their children and arranged their marriages. They welcomed grandchildren into the world. And most of them died in that foreign land. But they never forgot their homeland. They always grieved and hoped to return.

B. Then, 49 years later, in 538 B.C., the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians.

The Persian king, Cyrus the Great, generously issued an edict declaring the Jews free to go back to their homeland.

Cyrus even gave them back the precious golden vessels the Babylonians had looted from their temple.

The psalm I read—number 126—records their overwhelming joy as they returned.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy.

Picture the captives—freed now—following their wagons through the desert, walking the long trek from Babylon back to Jerusalem.

It was at least 900 miles. If they could walk 10 miles a day, it would have taken 3 months.

But as they journey, they are singing. They are rejoicing. “Their mouths are filled with laughter, and their tongues with shouts of joy.”

Only the oldest of the people have any memories of home country—Canaan—that they had left when little children.

But even those who had never seen Canaan had heard about it all their lives. For them too it was “home.”

As they walked along, they heard the people of the countries they passed say—or maybe they only imagined they heard them say—“The Lord has done great things for them.”

And they took up the chant: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.”

C. But after they got back to their own homeland, things were less perfect than they had hoped they would be.

There was lots of work to do.

Their fields were overgrown with weeds.

The walls of Jerusalem had been demolished.

Their beautiful Temple had been destroyed.

Some of their people had started worshiping idols.

They had had crop failures—hard times.

Have you ever had a dream come true—and found that it wasn’t as wonderful as you had hoped it would be?

It was hard for the Israelites to keep believing that God loved them and that they were his chosen people.

So our psalmist and his countrymen are looking back, some years after that happy time, remembering those happy times, and trying from their memories to draw hope for the future.

Apparently, this psalm was written in a time of drought and hunger,

The people cry out: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses of the Negeb!”

(The Negeb was the desert in the south of the land. In this country rain fell—if it fell at all—in the winter. It filled the dry stream beds and they became rushing torrents. These rains would insure a good crop of wheat to harvest in the early summer.)

D. As they thought of past blessings, they took heart. They looked forward to God’s deliverance, and they sang this prayer—which ends this psalm:

May those who sow in tears,

reap with shouts of joy!

Those that goes forth weeping,

bearing seed for sowing,

will come home with shouts of joy

bringing their sheaves with them.

Weeping at planting time was traditional among ancient peoples—as it still is in some poor countries.

They were planting their reserves of grain. If this seed didn’t grow, they would face famine.

There is an old proverb: “Do not laugh when you sow, or you will weep when you reap.”

Planting was an act of faith.

II. Like all of scripture, this psalm is preserved for our instruction.

A. It encourages us to recall the good times.

We look back to the past in the history of God’s working in the world, and we believe that what God did for believers of old, he will do for us.

We look back on our own lives; we see what God has done for us, and we take heart that he will do it again.

No matter how spectacularly God has blessed us in times past, there will always be new trials ahead.

Do you remember the old stories you enjoyed as a child that ended with “And they lived happily ever after”?

But of course, they didn’t “live happily ever after.” The ending of those stories would be the beginning of another story that we never heard.

There would be many adventures and troubles before their lives ended.

B. And this psalm teaches us to remember God’s goodness in the past to gain strength for the present and future.

God gives us these good experiences to store up in our memory banks for future reference.

We live in hope. We know that even suffering and death are part of God’s work of redemption.

Someone said, “God gave us memories so that we could have roses in December.” Well, we can keep all sorts of happy things in our memories to enjoy again and again until the end of our lives—and, I believe, for eternity.

C. Jesus never said that there would be no tears.

There are lots of tears. But Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Some people call our world “a vale of tears.” And there are tears in every life—tears of sorrow for our sins…tears of sorrow for ourselves and for the troubles of others…

When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” he is saying that those blessed people who sow in tears, will reap a harvest of joy.

St. Paul writes in Romans 12: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

When you come alongside someone who is suffering to offer sympathy and encouragement and prayers—you are sowing precious seed for a future harvest.

When you weep over the sorrows of our world and your tears lead you to prayer and generosity—you are sowing precious seed for a future harvest.

I take the “sheaves” as representing good work done for God—people served and lives won for Christ.

CONCLUSION

When I was a child, whenever we visited our grandma and grandpa, we listened to their radio. This was long before the age of television.

Grandma and Grandpa had a big wooden radio that stood on the floor. We always listened to that fine radio. We were usually at Grandma and Grandpa’s on a Sunday, and they always listened to the “Old Fashioned Revival Hour,” with Dr. Charles E. Fuller. Do you remember that program?

Dr. Fuller was a gravely-voiced old time evangelist, much beloved by his listeners.

The program featured a fine men’s quartet. And they would sing this song:

 Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,

Sowing in the noon tide and the dewy eve.

Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,

We shall come rejoicing,

Bringing in the sheaves.

We shall come rejoicing—there is a happy ending—and we shall live “happily ever after.”

Sheet music for "Bringing in the Sheaves" can be found at 
http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/sheaves.pdf

Romans 5:2-5: When It Just Doesn’t Turn Out Right

INTRODUCTION

In an article in Christian Century (February 11, 2011), Pastor Diane Ross tells about how she had received a call a couple of weeks before from a woman in her congregation. The woman had been coming to church with an older gentleman, a friend of the family. He couldn't drive anymore, so she had volunteered to take him to church. She had said it would help her be more regular in her own worship attendance. When she called, she was excited. She wanted her pastor to officiate at her wedding in May.

“I'm 60 years old and I'm getting married for the first time!” she told her pastor. She couldn't believe her luck. She had gotten re-acquainted with an old friend, the son of the man that she brought to church. And they had decided to get married.

A week after this call, the pastor learned that the woman was hospitalized with complications from a cold. On Thursday night, she had a stroke. On Tuesday, she died.

When her pastor arrived at the room of the woman’s mother to plan the funeral, the mother’s first words were: “It didn’t turn out right.”

Pastor Ross comments, “Some people talk about the ‘sovereignty of God’ as if God has orchestrated every single blessed and tragic small and great thing in the world. They say that very single solitary thing that happens is part of ‘God's plan,’ as if God is pulling all kinds of strings all over the place. I believe in the sovereignty of God, but I'm not sure that's what it means. I think that somehow, in the end, God will work everything for good, that there will be a time and a place where there is no more crying and no more death, where every tear will be wiped away, and where we will cast our crowns before the throne of the Lamb. In the meantime, sometimes, ‘it just doesn't turn out right.’”

Sometimes people say things like: “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God has a plan,” or “God’s in control,” or “Whatever happens is for the best,” or “It must be God’s will.”

Maybe you have said—or thought—such things. Some Christians believe that God micromanages the universe, so that everything that happens, happens according to God’s script—as if we are simply players in the play that God wrote before the beginning of time.

But that’s not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that many things happen that aren’t God’s will.

It’s not God’s will that people are terrorized in wars started by wicked men.

It’s not God will that people starve to death.

It’s not God’s will that tsunamis and earthquakes take thousands of lives.

It’s not God’s will that people kill, and cheat, and steal.

It’s not God’s will that babies are born profoundly handicapped—to grow up and go through life with terrible burdens.

It’s not God’s will that little children are tricked into becoming sexual playthings of wicked men.

Bad theology blames all the trouble in the world on God.

The idea that everything is according to God’s plan is a terrible stumbling block to faith in God.

God loves us. And God weeps—as we do—at the tragedies that befall humankind.

I hope I can tell you something from God’s Word that will help us to think about the sorrows that we all experience—and even sorrows that are worse than anything anyone in this room has had to endure.

Part of the problem is that God has created a world that is free.

God could have created a world of puppets instead of people. Then he could just pull the strings and we would all do what he wanted us to do.

But then we could have no choices. It would be a world without love.

I suppose that God could have created a natural world that would have no earthquakes, no floods, no droughts, no germs, and no accidents.

God is omnipotent—he could have made a world in which he would control everything like an author controls all the events in his story. But that would be a world with no freedom, no love, no faith or courage.

Not only are humans free in our world, so nature is also free. If everything in nature was an expression of God’s will, then the whole world would be simply a part of God.

But the world is not God. The world is also free, and things happen because nature is not scripted by God but free to develop and change.

Did you know that God also grieves? Paul begs the Ephesian believers: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30).

God is also sometimes disappointed. In Genesis 6—this was the time before Noah’s flood—we read, “When God saw the wickedness of mankind was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of people’s hearts was only evil continually, he was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”

Jesus wept over the fate of Jerusalem. Jesus wept at Lazarus’s grave. Jesus weeps today as he views the sorrows of our sad old world.

A few weeks ago a young white man visited a Bible study at Mother Immanuel Church, an African-American Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The church members welcomed him, and after enjoying their hospitality for an hour, he took out his gun and shot 9 of them dead. Do you think God did not weep?

A few months ago in Iraq ISIS fighters challenged four brothers—the oldest was 15—to renounce Christ. The boys said, “No we love Jesus; we have always loved Jesus; we have always followed Jesus. Jesus has always been with us.” The terrorists demanded, “Say the words to renounce Jesus!” The boys said, “No, we can’t.” And the terrorists sliced their throats. Do you think God did not weep?

Do you think that God did not weep when people were buried alive in the earthquake in Nepal a few weeks ago?

Do you think that God did not grieve with you when your dear one died?

God sent his Son into the world was so that he could experience solidarity with us humans in our sufferings.

Jesus experienced disappointment, hatred, injustice, betrayal, mockery—and the most horrific death wicked men could devise. He even experienced the feeling of being abandoned by God!

Jesus understands. He sympathizes. He walks with us. He holds our hand as we go through the dark valleys.

Now that I’ve laid out the problem—I hope I won’t disappoint you by admitting that I don’t have the answer to why there’s so much trouble in the world.

Some people say that the Bible gives us the answers to all our questions. But that isn’t true. Scripture is not a sun; it is a lamp. The Bible tells us truth from God.

The Bible tells us what we need to know to live for him—to live a life of faith and service to others.

But  we have to live with questions.

But God’s Word does give us some ways to look at evil and sorrow that will help us to keep believing that God is good. We can believe that he loves us and that he can make things come out for the best, after all.

That is what the “omnipotence of God” means. It means that God can bring good out of evil. He can bless his people even in this world of sorrow.

And he has another whole new world in which to make up for the sorrows of this one.

I have read whole books about this problem. I don’t have time to tell you what is in those books.

But I would like to bring one scripture to your attention that will help us to begin to think about the subject.

It is in Romans 5, beginning in the middle of verse 2:

We rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not disappoint us,

because God’s love has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

I. How can St. Paul say, “We rejoice in our sufferings”?

A. The word translated “rejoice” is kauchaomai, which is usually translated “boast.”

But boasting in English usually means bragging or advertising oneself.

So our translators used the word “rejoice.” Paul isn’t saying that whenever we suffer, we are bubbling over with happiness. He is saying that when we suffer, we can have a triumphant, rejoicing confidence—in God!

Because we suffer, God can achieve good in our lives that would not be otherwise possible.

B. Then Paul writes: “…and suffering produces endurance.”

Can you imagine what you would be like if your life had been always easy. Suppose that, as a child, you had always been given whatever you wanted. You would have been a “spoiled child.” You would have been obnoxious.

Suppose that you had never had a disappointment, only and always success?

How would you have developed the inner strength to deal with your troubles now?

The Greek word translated here “endurance” is hupomone. The lexicon gives these meanings for the word: “patient endurance,” “steadfastness,” “perseverance,” and “fortitude.”

Suffering can break us. Or it can make us stronger—if we hold fast to God and never give up.

Do you remember roller skates? (Children don’t have roller skates any more, but we did.) A little boy had been given a pair of roller skates. He was trying hard to stay up on them, but he kept falling down.

A well-meaning grownup said, “Why don’t you take a break and try again later?”

But the boy answered, “I didn’t get these new skates to give up on!”

That little boy was learning something that day besides how to roller skate. He was learning patient endurance.

C. Next, “…and patient endurance produces character.”

The word translated “character” is dokime. It means “a proof,” or “tested character.” So the meaning is that patient endurance produces tested character or the quality of being proved.

In Japan, every May 5th is Boys’ Day. Each house with a boy in it flies a big cloth fish on a pole high over the house. It’s like a windsock. The colorful fish stretches out in the wind. Each family flies a fish banner for every boy in the house.

The fish is a carp. The Japanese admire carp because carp swim strongly against the current. They want their boys to be strong and brave and swim against the current.

Even a dead fish can swim with the current. To be a faithful Christian, you have to learn to swim against the current. Tested character means to swim against the current.

Whenever we suffer—whether from sickness, injustice, or disappointment—we have an opportunity to prove the reality of our faith.

Trouble can make us bitter. Trouble can make us give up on God.

Or trouble can drive us to God. Trouble can make us cling to God.

You and I have seen examples of both.

I knew a useful young Christian, who I admired. But he forsook the faith because, in adversity, God didn’t answer his prayer. He never—as far as I know—has gone to church again, or even called himself a Christian.

Trouble made him give up on God.

Or trouble can make us cling more tightly to God.

If you want to know whether God is real, don’t go to someone who’s had an easy life. Go to someone who has suffered and clung to God through it all and who still has bright faith.

That person will help you believe that God is real.

D. So “suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.”

Trouble sweeps away the false hopes, the things that used to distract us.

When the prospect of worldly success is gone, when we know that we will never be rich or famous or beautiful or brilliant, then we are set free to put our hope in God.

Troubles make us long for heaven.

Tears wash away the dust of this world from our eyes so that we can see more clearly the Heavenly Country—our Eternal Home.

“Hope,” in the Bible, is not wishful thinking, like “I hope it doesn’t rain on our picnic,” or “I hope my back gets better.”

Hope, in the Bible, is “an anchor for the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Hope is confident, sure, expectation that God will fulfil his promises.

II. Last of all, the apostle writes, “And hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

A. If I can respond to my troubles with thankfulness and praise, then I open my life up to God’s Spirit, who can pour God’s love into my heart.

At the very center of our experience as Christians is the knowledge that we are loved by God.

B. In Victor Hugo’s great book, Les Miserables, Hugo writes, “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves” (Book 1, chapter 4).

But as wonderful as it is to be loved by another human being, it is even more wonderful to have the conviction that we are loved by God.

To have the conviction that you are one of God’s treasures, that Jesus loves you so much that he endured death for you, and that he loves you still, even though you are a flawed and sinful and broken human being, and that he will love you to the end—if you can be convinced of that, there is nothing better in all the world.

C. A young pastor visited one of his elderly parishioners. She was old and very poor. She lived in a shack. It stank. The windows were few, dirty, and cracked. She had lost her husband and both of her children.

Her pastor didn’t know what to say. So he asked her, “What can I do for you, Mrs. Jones?”

“Pray with me, pastor,” she said, and added, in a way that the pastor would never forget, “…and let it all be praise.”

D. The greatest thing in the world is to have God’s love poured into your heart:

…to have the assurance that God loves you…

…to have the assurance that God loves you—and will never let you go.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes it just doesn’t turn out right.

Don’t think there’s an answer for all our questions—not in the Bible or anywhere else.

But Jesus said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Come to Jesus every day—in the morning, during the day, in the evening, and in the watches of the night—and bring to him your anxieties…your pains…your disappointments.

I often use a prayer that contains these words:

Give me grace, I beseech thee,

to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments

as I myself am called upon to endure.

Deliver me from all fretfulness.

Let me be wise to draw from every disposition of thy providence

the lesson thou art minded to teach me.

Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens.

Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others.

And give me a believing heart to cast all burdens upon thee.

(John Baillie, Diary of Private Prayer, day 27, morning)

Give your troubles to Jesus—and ask him to use them for his glory …for your good…and to help you serve others.

Luke 23:32-43: The Promise of Paradise

INTRODUCTON

The Chapel in the Maximum Security Prison at Ft. Madison has this title above its door. It reads: “The Chapel of the Good Thief.”

The Christians who established that chapel put that title there because they hoped that the chapel would be a place where even the state’s worst offenders could still find a way back to God…to forgiveness…to salvation…to life everlasting.

The “Good Thief” refers to one of the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus. In my Bible they are called “bandits” in Matthew and Mark and “criminals” in the gospel of Luke.

In the King James Bible they are called “malefactors” in Luke and “thieves” in Matthew and Mark.

Here is the story, as recorded in Luke 23:32-43:

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

I. Let’s picture the scene in our minds.

A. Jesus is nailed to his cross, and on either side is a bandit—two evildoers.

Perhaps Jesus’s executioners put Jesus between these two really bad men was to heap more shame on Jesus—to make everyone see that Jesus was an evil and dangerous man.

We read in Mark and Matthew that when Jesus and the two bandits were hung on their crosses and the crowd was mocking and reviling Jesus—and that the two criminals were also taunting him.

But Luke tells us the story of the bandit who changed his mind about Jesus.

Various traditions have given names to these two criminals: the one who turned to Jesus is called “Dismas” (sometimes St. Dismas), and the one who continued to mock Jesus is called “Gestas.” I don’t know whether those were their real names, but tradition has given them those names—Dismas and Gestas, and I will use those names as I refer to them.

Very ancient tradition has it that Dismas was a bandit who dwelt in the desert and robbed or murdered anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. There is no doubt; he was a bad man. He admits as much. Perhaps Gestas was his companion in crime.

B. Let’s put ourselves in the place of the Dismas and Gestas.

We don’t know what, if anything, Dismas had known about Jesus before this last day of his life.

Maybe Dismas had seen Jesus or known about him. Maybe he had heard reports of his healings and of his teachings. Maybe Dismas had seen him give sight to a blind man. Maybe he had met him. But he had not believed.

But these are some of the things Dismas saw this day—his last day on earth.

He heard Jesus pray for his tormentors. He heard Jesus say, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Dismas saw the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’s clothes. (You may know that people were crucified naked. This was to ensure the maximum of shame.) The executed man’s clothes were a perk the executioners received for the gruesome job they had to do.

Dismas saw and heard the rulers scoffing at Jesus and saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”

He also saw the soldiers mocking Jesus, offering him vinegar, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

Dismas saw the inscription nailed over Jesus’s head: “The King of the Jews.”

And Dismas joined Gestas, and the soldiers, and the priests, and the rabble in their ridicule of Jesus.

But then something strange happened. After Gestas called out, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

Dismas had a change of heart.

He turned to Gestas—hanging on his cross on the other side of Jesus—and said, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

According to Luke, Dismas was the third person to acknowledge that Jesus was innocent—first Pilate, then Herod, then Dismas. Later, the centurion in charge of the execution would also bear witness after seeing Jesus die that Jesus was a righteous man, and that Jesus was the Son of God.

II. I like to imagine what changed Dismas’s heart from taunting to faith.

A. It may have been seeing the suffering, bleeding Jesus begging forgiveness for his tormentors.

It may have been the taunts—which actually contained the truth.

Luke quotes the rulers as shouting, “He saved others; let him save himself…”

Mark quotes the chief priests as shouting, “He saved others; he cannot save himself!”

Maybe Dismas realized that those chief priests spoke more truth than they realized. Jesus did save others. And because he was saving others, he could not save himself.

Maybe Dismas considered the inscription that the governor had put above Jesus’s head—“The King of the Jews”—and believed its truth—however it had been intended.

B. And Dismas turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Isn’t that remarkable? Just at the time when Jesus’s enemies had put Jesus to his greatest shame—the dying criminal was suddenly convinced that Jesus was actually who he said he was—the King—the Savior.

Dismas didn’t know any theology.

He probably didn’t know anything of the traditions of the Jewish faith.

He didn’t know John 3:16. He didn’t know the way of salvation according to the Book of Romans.

All he knew was that Jesus was a good man, who inspired faith, and was destined to be a King. And he turned to Jesus with his whole heart and made his request: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus gave him the answer that satisfied his need: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Dismas would hang on the cross for a few more hours. He would hear Jesus cry out “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me!”

And then he would hear Jesus commit himself to God: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

And he would see a dead Jesus hanging there beside him. And Dismas knew that death was his friend, because that very day he would be with Jesus in the Paradise of God.

III. So what is the meaning of this story?

A. We see Jesus on the cross. And we see humankind divided into two classes.

One class is represented by the unrepentant criminal. He is as guilty as the other man, but he doesn’t turn to Jesus. He represents those who hear the gospel, but are not interested.

They may be good people, who think they don’t need God.

They may be bad people—as Gestas was—who turn away from God.

The other class of humankind is represented by Dismas. They see Jesus on the cross…they believe that Jesus’s death is for them…and they turn to Christ, and commit themselves to him, and receive the gracious promise of eternal life with Jesus in Glory.

B. This story makes clear that God’s grace is free. Poor Dismas didn’t have the opportunity to do one righteous act except to rebuke his fellow criminal, but he was promised everlasting joy.

Some people miss out on salvation because they think they have to earn it. For Dismas there was no chance to do anything to earn his salvation—or to deserve it.

Dismas is our example of the truth of Ephesians 2:8-9: “By grace are you saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not because of works, lest anyone should boast.”

The next verse is: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This makes it clear that the “good works” are necessary but not for salvation. They come after salvation. We have then our opportunity to prove our faith by living for our Savior.

Dismas’s opportunity to live the life of faith lasted only for a few hours. Ours lasts longer.

But ironically, Dismas accomplished more in his brief life for God than any of us ever will, because he bore witness to Jesus, and his story has brought faith and hope to multitudes ever since—including those convicts who worship at the Ft. Madison Penitentiary in “The Chapel of the Good Thief.”

CONCLUSION

Let us consider the scene we have just observed.

Jesus is on the cross, dying for you and me…dying to bring us back to God.

The great Roman historian Tacitus knew about the crucifixion of Jesus. It happened during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. He mentioned it in his history. But Tacitus didn’t realize that Jesus was important. He wrote: “Under Tiberius nothing much happened.”

“Nothing much!” Only the most important event in the history of the world!

The cross of Christ is the watershed moment in history.

Everything that came before the cross looked forward to it.

Everything that has come after the cross of Christ looks back to it.

The ancient theologians had this phrase: “Christ reigns from the Cross.”

The church was right in using the cross as the symbol of our faith.

Some people like to skip over the cross and go right to the Resurrection.

But Paul writes of the death of Christ (Philippians 2.7-11):

And being found in human form,

Jesus humbled himself

and became obedient even to death,

even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

The cross is Christ’s throne. He has one throne in the heavens and the other is the cross.

The cross is Jesus’s pulpit. It is from the cross that Jesus preaches his message—and his message is a message of love.

The cross is God’s magnet.

Jesus said (John 12:32): “I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

On the cross Jesus opens his arms to welcome us sinners into the arms of God.

And the cross is the Gateway to Paradise.

Like Dismas we are guilty and need forgiveness and salvation.

And we each have a choice. We can turn away from Jesus and do without him—now and for all eternity.

Or we can turn to Jesus with faith and say, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom”—and hear his promise: “You will be with me in Paradise”—if not “today,” then sometime soon.

Sing “Jesus, Remember Me…” several times…slowly.

The Score is on the Internet at  

http://www.saintwilliams.org/files/Jesus%20Remember%20Me.pdf