Asking for Help
Season of Gratitude • Sermon • Submitted
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33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Christ the King Sunday
We have gone around the entire liturgical circle. Today is Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the liturgical year, the 3-part cycle we follow as a rhythm that orders our worship, guides our teachings, and moves us through the seasons of the calendar marked with meaning and relationship to the Christian and Jewish story.
This Sunday closes out the cycle and also sets the stage for what is to come: Advent, the hope of the light of Christ to come once more, in us, in our community, in our world. It is the promise of Paradise, which Christ offers to the criminal, that in Advent takes its earthly shape in the form of the Christ-child with us.
What I’m struck by this morning is that we go through these cycles year after year, that guide our days and structure our worship. And it’s not only liturgical cycles. We have all kinds of rhythms that we repeat, whether they be each day, each week, or across the turning of seasons.
We’re going to be out of town off and on the next couple of weeks, so we decorated for Christmas these last couple of days. We embraced the turning rhythm of unboxing lights and ornaments, putting up our fake tree, and switching over the house from Fall to Advent and Christmas mode. We all know that it is too early to do such a thing, but the rhythms of our lives also necessitate some adjustments depending on our situations and schedules. For this, we ask for forgiveness.
So, where does the exchange between Jesus and the criminal on the cross fit into our seasonal, liturgical matrix? How are we to understanding this our season of Gratitude and response to the stewardship campaign of our church? Isn’t this a day that is supposed to be filled with kingly pronouncements, where Christ rides in on white horse to finally set all things right? This is a funny text placed at the end of the cycle, isn’t it?
Instead, what we get here is Christ mocked and teased with sour wine to drink. His clothes are bet upon and scattered among his captors. And he is left, in shame, to die. Hardly the kingly end we expect. But, as we always find with Jesus, we see a different kind of leadership and example in how he responds.
I want to call out a couple of key things in this passage that will help us place it and consider it in light of where we’re at today.
First, we see how Jesus responds in his place of deepest pain and abandonment. When we think about how the world is these days, many of us feel like we’re at the ends of our ropes. The social, economic, political, and even personal burdens feel like they will crush us. We are out on our final limb, hoping that God will reach down to help us somehow.
So first, we see how Jesus reacts when he is in a place of deepest need, himself. What does he say? How does he act in this instance? He asks for grace for his oppressors and promises salvation for his criminal counterpart. Hardly the response we expect from a disgraced religious leader. And yet wholly what we come to expect from Jesus, the Christ.
Second, I want to get specific about his reaction to the criminal. Jesus could certainly have been grieved and angry at the first criminal, who only added to the ridicule he was receiving from those who set about to crucify him. Again, you think about a disgraced king and how this would be the last moment for them to spit vile and anger at their captors, their executioners. Going down in a blaze of glory and spite, right?
But what we see is Jesus’ compassion for them all.
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
What we see here is, instead of the turn against the other criminals, he turns towards them in compassion and care. We find that the way of the king, the way of Jesus, is to offer help and grace to those in need.
Now, I want to pause for a moment and have us consider where we find ourselves in this text. Who do you most connect with as you hear the story? The people and leaders who stood by to watch? One or the other criminal? Or Jesus?
It’s common for us to hear stories of Jesus’ ministry and feel that we are supposed to take on his ethical stance exactly, to emulate how he reacts. So, we might be tempted to look at this story, see Christ on the cross and yet still offering grace, and think we need to figure out how to do that kind of thing ourselves.
So we become martyrs, forsaking our needs and bending over backwards to help others in need. We ask for forgiveness for those who wrong us and even those outside of our influence or presence. We look at the King of the Jews and think: how do I become more like this King?
Right? That’s what we’re supposed to do, we’re supposed to figure out how to align ourselves to the way Jesus lived.
But I find a problem with that, especially with this instance and story and place we are at in our own rhythm of life.
Of course, we lay down our lives for each other, we bear one another’s burdens, we willingly sacrifice for the needs of others, our friends, family, community, neighbors and enemies. This is the way of Jesus.
But you know what? Today, as much as I resonate with the work of Jesus here on the cross, today, I need to connect with the plea of the second criminal.
I need to step away from trying to simply align my life with Jesus’ way here and look at it from a different angle. I need to come at this, instead, from the perspective of needing Jesus, of asking for Jesus’ care, of longing for a place in the Kingdom Jesus is leading.
The second criminal, let’s remember his part in the story:
The first criminal begins to taunt Jesus, telling him to get on with saving himself, handling this unfortunate scenario with his God-powers. The first criminal scoffs at Jesus like the rest — isn’t this what God-men like you are supposed to be able to handle?
And so the first criminal taunts…and the second criminal chimes in to respond.
First, he rebukes his fellow criminal — hey man, hold up. We both know we’re hear because of what we’ve done. We’re both guilty and while crucifixion isn’t the way I’d planned to go out, it’s kinda what our community does and it’s consistent with how we punish people for public crimes. So…back off this other guy, he says — Jesus has been condemned unjustly…this man has done nothing wrong.
The first criminal is deflecting his anger at Jesus through his taunts. He’s projecting his problems outward onto another person, trying to cope with the reality of his demise.
But I resonate with the second criminal, not because he’s necessarily any less guilty or more deserving of grace and liberation, but because he acknowledges his faults with his fellow criminal and, then…he asks for help.
He turns to Jesus. Can you sense all the feeling in his request? I can hear his internal process — “I know I’ve done wrong, I know I deserve a punishment. But man, this guy here, he’s innocent. And not only that, he’s doing good in his work, he’s offering people life. I want life. I want to get out of this cycle, this broken rhythm of criminal activity, this cycle of despair. So…Jesus, please remember me.”
He asks for help, he asks for Jesus to extend just a bit more grace to him, to remember him when all of this passes away.
And we hear Jesus’ response. As I hear this, I feel such a grace, a relief, a sense that the second criminal can exhale, that I can breath a bit of relief knowing that I have been seen.
Jesus says, “truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
When we turn to the savior, messiah, Christ, what do we receive? Grace and welcome.
When we turn to Christ and ask for help, it is there. When we’re in our place of deepest need or sorrow, we know that we are not alone.
Now, while the account does not go on to describe the deaths of the criminals, we can assume they, like Jesus, ultimately die on those crosses. Asking for help does not change the reality of their condition, at least in the immediate moments.
And this is important for how we understand what it looks like to ask for help. Asking for God to remember us does not always look like being able to get down off the cross and keep living a healthy and productive life. Illnesses are not always miraculously healed, financial struggles are not always quickly alleviated.
But what does happen is that Christ walks with us in such circumstances. We know we are accompanied.
And so it is with the criminal. His hope is no longer in being set free right there and then. Rather, his hope and promise comes from an assurance of being welcomed into grace even with all of his problems, baggage, and punishment.
When we ask for help from Christ, we receive it in presence, comfort, and steadfast connection. We are accompanied by the Spirit of God, in order to face trials and know we are not alone.
Hear it again — truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
I’m gonna be honest, we’re in our stewardship season and I want to somehow make a link for us this morning between this story and what we’re on about in terms of drumming up support and enthusiasm for the upcoming year.
But to draw this all up into a nice bow seems…cumbersome at best and inauthentic at worst.
So let me just say this: We are asking for help. We are looking to each other and saying, “hey, remember the needs we have and let’s work together to participate in the good Kingdom of God together by contributing.”
We need help. We need each others’ help. We need Christ’s help, in and through each other, to do the work God calls us to do in our world, our city, in our relationships with each other and our neighbors.
And how we do this is we ask for help. We ask, first and foremost, that God help us, that God provide for us when we need. And God continues to be faithful in this.
And we ask for help collectively, asking that God would make space in our financial and personal situations to provide help and offer a home for others by what we offer of ourselves.
I can’t tie this up into a nice package and make it about stewardship. Rather, this is about a whole life ethic of learning how to ask for what we need and trusting that God will provide as we need.
So I’ll simply say this: We’re asking each other for help. We’re trusting that the Christ in us is able to hear that and respond. So, please listen to this call for help and, as you are able and called by God, respond to it.
I’ll close with this: I feel sadness for the first criminal, because I also know his story. I know the story of the scoffers. I know the sense of feeling like I need to resist compassion and grace from others or that I cannot offer such grace and welcome because I, perhaps, am not safe and secure myself. I get it. And I mourn. Because the first criminal is missing the goodness of needing and asking for help. To rely upon another, a savior, yes, but also a friend and companion. I feel sadness for those in our world who cannot accept the help offered them or cannot even embrace the reality that they need help.
I know I need help. We need to help one another. May we humbly realize and turn towards this, for it is our salvation, our way to wholeness — asking for help.
Amen.
Stewardship Season & The Criminal on the Cross
Whole-life discipleship — all of us, all of us.