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Dio LansingREAD: DAY TWO | THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST FROM THE CROSS w/ BISHOP BOYEA: Today is Palm Sunday whereupon we embark upon our Holy Week pilgrimage with Jesus towards Golgotha. Hence, Bishop Earl Boyea will lead us in a daily meditation until Good Friday upon the last seven words of Christ from the Cross. Today: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Bishop Boyea writes:
Luke has three sayings of Jesus not found in the other Gospels: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” It is this second phrase which I would like to reflect upon briefly.
Jesus was crucified with two thieves, thus indicating that Jesus too was considered a criminal for whom the death penalty was considered a just sentence. Jesus has just forgiven the executioners and the crowd because they clearly do not understand what they have done. Now his attention is turned specifically to the two men with whom he is crucified. One of the two joins in the jeering and calls on Jesus to save himself and them. Little does he know that that is what Jesus is doing. He is saving—his death is saving.
But the second thief seems to have an insight, given by God, into this whole mystery. He makes several comments. First of all, he calls upon his fellow thief to have fear of God. This is not meant to frighten his partner in crime. Rather, it is to call that man to recognize that God is just and that God’s justice is all that matters. He recognizes that they both have been sinners. But then he turns to Jesus and sees there that this man is innocent, that God’s justice has not been manifest in the sentence meted out to him. And so he turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The man has made an act of faith in God, that God will triumph.
Jesus then reveals to this Good Thief that God’s justice is manifest especially in mercy and forgiveness. That mercy which Jesus begged from his Father for the crowds, he now promises to this thief almost like the Father in the story of the prodigal son. Even before the thief can actually confess his son to Jesus, Jesus proclaims: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus is ready to impart the embrace and new shoes and new coat and have a feast. This was the first canonization ceremony. St. Dismas opened himself completely to the mercy and forgiveness of God and Jesus, in his last agony, could do nothing other than be a means of God’s mercy toward him.
Holy Week, my sisters and brothers, is a festival of mercy. Let us see ourselves aright. Let us acknowledge our sinfulness, our need for redemption. Let us then turn to Jesus who wants to do nothing other than welcome us back, embrace us with the loving arms of God, who wants nothing other than that we be with him in paradise.
