Paradise
Luke 23:32-43
Most of us don’t know when death will sweep us away. Only once in my ministry did I know a person who knew the year of his death. Fred came to me in January 2008 and told me he was going to die that year. I was taken back because he seemed to be in great health, he was sane, he loved life but in July 2008 I held his funeral.
But most of us don’t know when we will die. Of course, if you have three nails pounded into your body, one in each wrist and one through your feet, if you’ve just been beaten to a pulp, if you have been strung up on a cross in such a way that it is almost impossible to breath and there is no possible way to escape; if you will never be given food or water, if the police are just about to break your legs – if all of that is true I think you would have some idea that death is just around the corner.
This is the situation an unnamed terrorist found himself in back 2000 years ago. The Roman authorities in Israel were constantly battling freedom fighters; young man who wanted to break the yoke of Rome. They robbed, killed, caused mayhem, up and down the land. Sometimes they got away with it and sometimes they were caught. And Rome showed no mercy to terrorists. Within hours they were strung up on a cross to die. The cross – the cruelest method of execution every devised by humankind. Crucifixion delayed death until maximum torture had been inflicted.
There were actually three men on the gibbet that day long ago. And all three were guilty. If the Romans strung you up on a cross to die you must have done something terrible. It’s like when you drive by a car stopped by the police. Nobody says to himself, O that poor innocent person stopped by that terrible policemen. NO, we say: Well I’m glad they got him, must have been speeding, maybe he’s a drunk driver or worse, maybe that’s a stolen car. If the cops stop a person by the side of the road they are guilty.
So, the Man on the middle cross was lumped in with the thieves. He was damned by association. He had been doing at all his life. When he was eight days old he was circumcised. That’s something only sinners do. When he was 30 he was baptized. That’s something only sinners do. Now he hangs on a cross. That’s something only sinners do.
But there were at least a couple who knew the Man on the middle cross was different. The centurion knew. The Bible says that when he witnessed this awful moment he praised God.
And one of the thieves knew the Man beside him was different. We suffer justly but this Man has done nothing amiss. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Jesus, remember me. Remember, I spared your life. Remember when you and your Mom and Dad were on the road to Egypt and I was with a small group of highwaymen; and we were going to kill you and take the Gold, the frankincense and myrrh. But I looked into your eyes. Even as a child you were different. I could see God. I could see Paradise in your eyes. I told my fellow freedom fighters to back off remember, I spared your life.
Now, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Remember me. Isn’t that the ubiquitous cry of the human heart? We want to be remembered. So, we write books, and take pictures, and order gravestones with large print. But alas, alas, most of us don’t even know the names of our great, great grandparents and they only lived 100 years ago.
We are like grass, the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom. I don’t care if everybody else forgets, Jesus, Remember me.
What happens after we die? Right after we die? When we breath our last? No pulse, the brain wave is gone.
Today, you will be with me in Paradise. The man on the middle cross speaks. That in itself was not unusual. The Romans expected Him to cry out. Seneca wrote that those who were crucified cursed the day they were born, cursed their executioners, cursed their mothers. Cicero records that at times it was necessary to cut out the tongues of those who were crucified to stop the terrible blasphemies.
But not this one: He speaks seven times from the Cross and his first word of one of blessing: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And then his second word is so encouraging it ripples from him down the generations:
Today, you will be with me in Paradise.
Today: no waiting around until the end of the age, no soul sleep, today you will enter Paradise. Today.
You: You will be you in heaven. Not a strange caricature of you but really you. Not some floating fuzzy thing but you. Really you. All that makes you a great person, a funny, thoughtful, delightful person to be around. The you that very few people know because sin keeps getting in the way. You, if you had been raised in a different home, you if you had made better choices, you, if you had not met that evil person, you, with all your potential for greatness. You will be with me.
You with Me: The source of all love and light and joy. With me.
In Paradise. There are two places that go by the name Paradise in the Bible. There is the Garden of Eden and there is Heaven. And the first is the shadow of the second.
The Garden of Eden is called Paradise. I have been often been asked in my ministry to locate the Garden of Eden. Where was it? The Bible says in Genesis 2 that there were four rivers that flowed through this Paradise – the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. We have only retained the names of the last two into modern times – the Tigris and the Euphrates. What about the other two rivers? Bible scholars are making an educated guess when they suggest that the other rivers are the Nile and the Indus. So, what are we talking about when we say Garden of Eden? That great swath of land from Central Africa around the Fertile Crescent through the Holy Land and all the way to the heartland of India.
The Garden of Eden was immense. This was not some little English Garden. This is a huge land mass. The Bible says that it was filled with riches. With gold. It was filled with wonderful fauna and flora. Historians tell us that three of the four great ancient civilizations were found right in this area: The Egyptian, the Mesopotamian, and the Indus.
The Garden of Eden was a fabulous place but it was only a shadow of things to come. The Bible says in Hebrews 5 that all these wonderful things in the Old Testament are a shadow of the heavenly. 400 years before Christ Plato talked the same way. If there is something great in this life it is but a shadow of the real world.
Once in a while I have fun taking a picture of the shadow of Muriel and myself walking down the street. You can tell we are people. You can tell one is taller than the other. You can sort of tell that one is a man and the other is a woman. But the colour is gray or black and it is two dimensional. It’s not really us.
That is the way it is of so many things we now enjoy. As C. S. Lewis said: we live in the Shadowlands. So many things we enjoy here on earth are but a shadow of things to come.
What is it that gives you great joy in life? Travel? Pets? Sex? Food? Music? Art? Time spent with Friends and Family?
If you think these things are great now wait until you get to Paradise. The Paradise Jesus spoke about from the Cross. Let me close by picking out just two and show you how much more wonderful they will be in heaven.
Time and Food
Time is a wonderful gift from God but in this life, it is like a roller-coaster. It has its exciting moments, its ups and downs and then all of a sudden, it’s over. You can’t really stop and enjoy the scenery on a roller-coaster. Those special moments with friends and family pass by too quickly. You just keep moving until it’s all over.
Time as we know it is but a shadow of time in heaven. Yes, there is time in heaven. I know what the angel said in Revelation that time would be no more. But that’s time as we know it.
The Bible says in Revelation 22 that the tree of life will yield its fruit each month. There are months in Heaven. There is time in heaven. And its wonderfully different.
A couple of years ago we were driving near Revelstoke British Columbia and my dear wife said she found a great way to get rid of $75. They had this ride just outside Revelstoke that I would love, she said. It is called a tube ride. You go up the side of the mountain on a Gondola and then you get into this little one-seater go cart attached to a tube running all the way down the mountain. You’d think that as we get older we’d get wiser. But no, I got on this thing.
Now the reason why you don’t get killed by the time you get to the bottom is because the tube ride is slightly different than a roller-coaster. The tube ride has a stick that you can pull toward you. So, the deal is this. You go down the mountain as fast or as slow as you want to. If you see something wonderful you can pull the stick back, slow up or stop and enjoy the moment.
That is the way time will be in Heaven. If you want to savor the moment you can put life on pause. If you have ever wished that you could freeze frame that time with a friend or a grandchild you will be able to do so in heaven. We now know from our early studies into the sub-atomic world that there are other dimensions then the ones we are used to here; time in the quantum world works much different than it does here.
Today you will be with me in Paradise - where time never ends and you can pause it at will.
And what about food. Yes, all the food we enjoy here on earth is but a shadow of gourmet feast to come. Last chapter of the Bible says: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Twelve kinds of fruit! I know what some of you are thinking. I don’t want to spend eternity with a bunch of vegans! Yes, but what if the fruit tasted like a juicy rib eye steak. What if no cow had to give up its life for your meal? What if the lion and the lamb lived side by side in peace? What if there were no predators or pry? And what if the fruit God provides tasted like your favourite food: one day a pizza, another day salmon, and after that what we all dream of: a healthy DQ Blizzard.
And what if all this food came from the tree of life so that you would never be ill and would never die.
