Jesus, Remember Us

A sermon for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
April 13, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs AR

Readings: Luke 22:14-23:56

He must be the patron saint of deathbed conversions, of last minute pleas when your back is up against the wall, of foxhole prayers and “Hail, Mary” long shots. He must be, this thief on the cross beside Jesus. At the last minute, just before the end, he makes a request. It sounds like a humble request. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The way Luke tells it today, the conversation is serene, almost peaceful at the end, akin to a last request before the hood goes on the head. I think it must have been less so, more of a conversation of groans, sighs, and screams than well strung together words. The thief screams out, pain coursing through his body, regret coursing through his mind, anxiety coursing through his soul: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. 

What is he asking? What is he hoping for? What are any of us hoping for at those moments of consequence where we have no control? 

In our 21st century English imaginations, to remember is an intellectual function. I remember I need milk. I remember my appointment at the dentist. I remember to call my mother. That’s not what the thief means. For in the Hebrew imagination, to remember is not an intellectual function alone. It is action. When God remembers, God acts. When God remembers Abraham, he rescues his nephew Lot from danger. When God remembers Rachel, she conceives in her womb. When God remembers his people, he sends in Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the people go. Divine remembrance is divine action. Divine remembrance is a precursor to divine liberation. When the thief asks Jesus to remember him, he is asking him to act, even to set him free. 

It is clear, however, that he is not asking Jesus to take him down from the cross, to save him from the wood and the nails. The other thief asks that. He says, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” Get us down from this cross. Take us from this pain, like an escape hatch. But the thief rebukes his companion. “Do you not fear God?” he asks. “We indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he asks, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He is asking Jesus to act on his behalf in the land on the other side of the cross. He might not know it, but he is asking for resurrection. 

Today we stand in the shadow of the three crosses. We see the suffering of our Lord for our redemption, and we see the suffering of the thieves. In them, we see ourselves. For the truth is, we all carry crosses in the world. Crosses stand in our lives: crosses of sickness and pain, grief and shame, sin and death. Crosses that take us out of light and life, and into desolation and despair. Crosses stand, and we too often find ourselves on them, unable to escape. Sometimes they are crosses that are put on our shoulders; they feel unfair. Sometimes they are crosses of our own invention: crosses of sin that we erect as we run from love and into fear. In either case, crosses stand, and we must bear them. 

Like the first thief, I find myself pleading for an escape. But we don’t escape our crosses. Following Jesus does not mean a life with no cross. Instead, it is a life that embraces the cross. But the invitation today is to pray the prayer of the second thief: Jesus, remember us when you come into your kingdom. For whatever cross we find ourselves on–crosses of sickness and pain, of grief and shame, of sin and death–whatever cross we bear, we find Jesus there beside us, bearing our cross, too. Not because he has to. But because he loves us. 

If that’s all it was, though, it would be little comfort. If Jesus only bore a cross to be with us in solidarity, well, forgive me, but I’m disappointed. No, Christ bears the cross to transform it from an instrument of shame and death to the way of life. And in so doing, he transforms our crosses, even the most difficult crosses that stand in our lives. He makes them, in a mysterious way that can scarcely be spoken, the path of our redemption and sanctification. For on the other side of our crosses–on the other side of sickness and pain, grief and shame, sin and death–on the other side is light. There is a hope that shall not die. There is healing that reaches to the depths of the soul. There is a love that is stronger than death. There is a forgiveness greater than our sins. There is a life that cannot be held down by the bonds of hell. On the other side of the cross is Jesus, arms open wide, wounds in his body. And he calls us to himself. 

Jesus, remember us when you come into your kingdom.