Luke 23:33-43
“Converted on a Cross”
By: Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
I would imagine we all know the song: “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.”
It’s a ballad about a prisoner who had been released from jail.
Not sure whether his wife still loved him or wanted him home, he wrote her and said, “Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree and I’ll know I’m welcome home when I see it. If it’s not there, I’ll keep going.”
Well, many of you probably know what happened.
The ex-convict was on a bus when he passed the house.
And what did he see but a hundred yellow ribbons tied around the tree.
In a sense, this is how God works.
Many of us may not feel that God would want to welcome us into His kingdom.
We know ourselves.
We know our sins.
We know how far short we fall.
Not sure that God still loves us and wants us, we might very well ask God for a sign.
And if we don’t see that sign, we’ll keep going.
But that sign is there for everyone of us!
God has tied a scarlet ribbon around an old Cross tree. And He says to all of us: “You can come home now!”
How many times have we heard other Christians talk about their conversion…which means ‘the turning’ of a soul from sin to God?
Many of us can tell others with ecstatic joy both the date and the place.
I like to think of it as that gap in life that is bridged by Jesus, the Son of God.
It is a historic occasion, each conversion.
In John Chapter 3, Jesus tells a Pharisee named Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again…Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”
And then He goes on to say something quite fascinating…
… “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
It is God’s timing and God’s initiative that decides when we are converted.
I believe that we are all given an opportunity, to come face to face with the truth…
…we are sinners in need of God’s grace…
…and God’s grace is available to us—free of charge through what Christ did on the Cross.
Of course, we were created with the divine gift of free-choice.
We don’t have to accept God’s invitation to ‘come home’, we can keep on going in the direction we have always been going.
We can choose to ignore the scarlet ribbon around the old Cross tree.
And the people of Jesus’ day were no different.
In this morning’s Gospel Lesson we are told that a crowd had gathered atop Golgotha to witness Rome’s grizzliest handiwork.
The attraction that had drawn them from their homes, their jobs, was a crucifixion.
Three men criminally convicted and condemned were tied and nailed to rough wooden crosses…
…and “The people stood watching.”
Jesus.
Jesus of Nazareth was dying.
He was the man in the middle.
He was the preacher, the miracle worker, the prophet.
He was the Son of God, the Savior.
And He was dying before the eyes of the crowd.
The indifferent, the self-righteous, those who could not understand; they were all their that day.
But there was another person watching atop Golgotha that day.
He was a common criminal.
He was dying on a cross just like Jesus, but unlike many in the crowd of onlookers, this criminal was the one who understood what God was doing at Calvary.
“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at” Jesus: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
“But the other criminal rebuked him.
‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’”
“Then he said, ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.’”
“Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’”
Sometimes it takes being nailed to our crosses of life before we are able to understand the wind of the Holy Spirit, and can say, Lord, remember me.
There isn’t one of us who don’t have a cross or many crosses to bear in this life.
There isn’t one of us who do not have some flaw in our nature…
…some ‘thorn in the flesh’…
…some secret shame…
…some hidden sin or personality disorder.
Now, this is a terrible tragedy that is the result of our disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden.
Certainly, all of us have been born in sin.
It doesn’t matter what our status is in life, our wealth, our denomination, or ethnic origin…
…we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And it is only when we come face to face with this sin…and want nothing more to do with it…that we are able to cry out to God: “Remember me.”
There’s a story of a man who was carrying a heavy cross…a much too heavy cross.
Maybe some of us can relate.
So he came to Jesus and said to Him: “This cross I’m carrying is much too heavy for me to bear. Would it be alright if I were to exchange this one for another?”
Jesus takes the cross from the man, and tells him: “Certainly. I will put this cross in a room with all the other crosses. You can go into that room and pick out any cross that you would prefer.”
So the man walked into the room looking for the smallest and lightest cross in the room. After a long search, he found it, and came back to Jesus saying: “This is the smallest cross I could find. This is the one I prefer to carry.”
Jesus replied to him, “That will be just fine, but I must tell you, you picked the very same cross you were carrying when you came to me.”
Yes, we all have crosses to bear.
There is no getting around this fact, but how about, instead of feeling sorry for ourselves…or judging the weight of another’s cross…we all come together as the human community…admitting our corporate need for love, acceptance, forgiveness…
…for a Savior!
Even the Apostle Paul had a cross to bear.
He called it his “thorn in the flesh.”
No one really knows what exactly it was…
…it may have been a temptation…
…it may have been a physical problem…
…whatever it was, Paul, not unlike us, did not want to have to carry it.
So he tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 12: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
Paul came to realize this thorn…this cross as a gift, rather than a curse.
He said that it kept him from “becoming conceited.”
He also said, in essence, that this thorn in the flesh caused him to realize that he had to rely more and more heavily on God…
…rather than self…
… “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
God’s grace is most definitely more than sufficient for each and every one of us!
The criminal who hung on the cross with Christ did not ask Jesus to take him down from that bloody cross…
…no…
…he asked Jesus for something much greater than that.
He asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins, and to enable him to overcome death by putting his faith in Christ the King!
And Jesus did not reprimand nor lecture the criminal on the chronology of his life.
He simply forgave him and welcomed him.
The criminal saw what the others missed that day.
The Cross was an open door home.
God was loving the world so much that He was sacrificing His Only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him might have everlasting life.
Yes, the crowd stood by watching.
Some were indifferent.
Some were self-righteous.
And some did not understand.
But there was at least one who saw what was going on and he believed.
Every attitude expressed atop Mount Calvary is still expressed in our world today.
You and I are represented by at least one of those characters from Golgotha’s crowd.
Are we indifferent?
Are we self-righteous?
Do we feel that we do not need Jesus?
Are we constantly having our own little ‘pity party’…
…saying, “God, why me?”
Or are we like the criminal?
Have we lived a life of sin and hurt?…
…broken every law…
…but now see the error of our ways?
Will we pray, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”?
The Cross is the key that unlocks an imprisoned world.
This is the best sermon God has ever preached to humankind and all it said was: “You can come home now. The door to Paradise is wide open. The Cross was for you and you and you. So why don’t you come home?”
