I Dont Know

TITLE: I DON’T KNOW

SCRIPTURE: ST. LUKE 23:39-43 / II CORINTHIANS 5:21

This particular text is ordinarily reserved for Holy Week or Good Friday Service. However, it is a text that we should examine as often as we can. We are somewhat familiar with the text, and I challenge you this morning to stay with me as I believe there is a message here for each of us. Two evildoers — criminals – were facing their just deserts. They did the crime and now had to ‘face the punishment.’

• MATTHEW and MARK tell us they were robbers

• They preyed on the innocent

• They cared nothing for their neighbor’s wellbeing

We might regard death by crucifixion as too severe a penalty for robbery, but it would be good if robbers were as afraid of severe justice as innocent citizens are of being robbed. Those lawless thugs were only getting what they deserved. The Bible doesn’t question the justice of their penalty. Crucifixion was not an execution method for common criminals - it was reserved for enemies of the state. Crucifixion was saved for people the Roman Empire wanted to make examples of - people who had committed crimes like insurrection - civil disobedience - treason. It’s why Jesus was crucified. The message sent to the commoners by a body left to rot on a cross was simple --

• Don’t oppose the State (the government) or the systems of the state

• Don’t mess with the ones who are making a profit from those systems

• Because if you do, you will end up hanging on a tree at the edge of the city

Today, we live in a time --

• When sin is de?ned as disease

• When violence and adultery are no longer sins but elements in a dysfunctional relationship

• When cheating on a spouse is now viewed simply as ‘an entanglement’

• When repentance is out of style

• When the Gospel of self-grati?cation - self-esteem - and just plain sel?shness has silenced the judgment of God’s law as taught in the Ten Commandments

Had you gone to Jerusalem that day so long ago, and had you gone just outside the wall to the north, out through the Damascus Gate, there you would have seen a rocky outcropping. And there, you would have seen three crosses, with three men on those crosses. During Jesus’ six agonizing hours on the cross,

• Jesus made seven statements, and none was more shocking than His offer of mercy to the Dying Thief

It’s 9 a.m. on Friday morning, and Jesus is being led to Golgotha, the site of His execution. You would have seen on that one cross a thief to the left. And a thief to the right as well. On that middle cross would have been the very Son of God.

• Someone has observed that Jesus did not die in a cathedral between two candles

• He died on a cross between two nameless criminals

• We don’t know the names of either one of these men

• It is the only time we read about them in the Bible

• Three men died that day on a cross

o One was a Savior

o One was a Sinner

o One was a Saint

• Each of the three dying men has something to say to us

Jesus is surrounded by scoffers. The priests ridiculed Jesus as did many in the crowds of Jerusalem during that holiday weekend so many years ago.

• God, the Father, selected some sorry company for Jesus’ last hours

• Jesus was a sheep surrounded by wolves

With convicts on both sides of Him, Jesus hung there for hours, hearing every single syllable of ridicule. Nobody knows who arranged that Jesus died between these two thieves. No, we don’t know how it exactly happened, except it is a fulfillment of scripture because the Prophet Isaiah predicted the Messiah would be crucified with what he called “the wicked”

If we listen, we hear whispered cries from friends and loved ones - hushed conversations and condolences to the family - “I’m so sorry…”"he was so young..." and only the sound of the wind fills the silence between the tears. But among the witnesses, there are also mockers. Those who, for whatever reason, thought it amusing to poke fun at the condemned Jesus. Maybe they were desensitized; maybe they were trying to alleviate some of the horror of it all.

• Making jokes in painful situation tends to ease our discomfort

• We even have a name for it

• We call it “comic relief”

• Humor distances us from intimacy - from the atrocity that we are allowing to happen before our eyes, or even participating

• If we can make a joke, we can push down the nauseous feeling that rises within us