Good Friday Message - With Jesus in Paradise

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? 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 have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Luke 23:39-43

How can we call this day “Good Friday”?  God is good.  In the beginning, God created, and He described His creation as good, and people lived in Paradise because they communed with God.  Humans quickly made a mess of things, and the world became a place of great contrast, a place where God’s glory is revealed, and also where darkness and evil proliferate. 

As we look back to that first Good Friday, we see the darkest darkness imaginable.  We see vicious evil on shocking display.  We see religious leaders, upstanding men, leaders of the community, educated, respected, seemingly good men who were so blinded to the truth, so separated from God that they truly believed they were serving God and saving God’s church by killing God Incarnate.  We see a ruler knowingly ordering the execution of an innocent man, merely to serve his personal political aspirations.  We see crowds shift from praising Jesus to asking for His execution.  We see soldiers zealously following orders, mocking, shaming, torturing, killing God.  We see Jesus’ closest friends betray, deny and abandon Him.  We see a dark, dark day, in fact, the sun stopped shining that day for three hours.

People did horrific things that day.  They enacted the greatest evil ever committed on earth, and if we are true to ourselves, if we look in the mirror openly, we realize we are much closer to them than we would ever care to admit.  We are each capable of the same sort of evil.  We each have darkness within us.  We are sinners and the wages of sin is death.  We deserve death.  We deserve God’s wrath.  We deserve His raining sulfur fire, we deserve His flood, we deserve to be struck down. 

At the cross we see the most horrific evil imaginable and God’s wrath poured out in shocking display, but He did not pour out His wrath on those who deserve it, He poured it out on His only begotten Son, the only pure, holy, innocent One, God Incarnate, and through it all we see the ultimate display of God’s love, mercy and the majesty of His glory.  Evil, wrath, love, mercy and God’s glory intersect at the cross.  On the surface of the cross we see evil and wrath, but through the cross we see God’s love and mercy.  God’s glory is revealed through the darkness.  God’s glory is revealed through the cross. 

The Romans had perfected crucifixion as a horrific instrument of torture, death and crowd control, the object of nightmares.  But God transformed the cross into a symbol of mercy, love and life.  In the same way, God transforms people from futility to hope, from brokenness to wholeness, from death to life.

Three men were crucified on that Good Friday.  Two thieves and the sinless Son of God, Christ Jesus, the Messiah.  Luke writes, beginning at Luke 23:39,

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? 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 have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Luke 23:39-43

One of the thieves recognized his guilt.  He knew that he deserved death and he saw Jesus for who He is.  They were all hanging on a cross, in agony, dying, but one of the men knew that Jesus would soon enter His kingdom, that this was merely another step in the process for Jesus, and the man believed.  He was dying, he knew he deserved death.  Then he met Jesus and realized who Jesus is and believed, and through Jesus he entered Paradise.  The thief said,

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Luke 23:42-43

What are we to do with this?  We recognize our helplessness.  We understand that apart from Christ Jesus we are dead and we deserve death, but through Christ Jesus the author of life grants us life.  We enter His joy, His peace, His rest.  We move from death to life.  We enter communion with God, and that place of communion with God is Paradise.  And so this darkest of dark days is indeed Good Friday, because without it there would be no Good News.

May you realize your helplessness apart from Christ Jesus.  May you desire Him, seek Him and know Him intimately.  May you experience His glory, His life, His light.  May God continue to shine His glory through you.  Amen.