“PARADISE FOUND”

LUKE 23:39-45

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."

44  It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,

45  while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

It was a lesson that I’ll never forget. I learned the lesson many years ago from a parishioner. I was a young minister at the time and just learning the ropes when I found a man sitting in my office with a heavy heart. His wife had just discovered that he was having an affair and their marriage was about to come to an end.  It was clear that the man was overwhelmed with guilt. So, I did my best to console him.  That’s when he stopped me. “Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I should feel guilty.  I’ve done a terrible thing.”

What that man did that day is the same thing that the penitent thief did when he and his partner in crime were crucified with Jesus. The penitent thief expressed remorse for what must have been a life of debauchery and diabolical deeds. He did that when he turned to his partner in crime and said, “we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”

People who don’t have enough guilt are like the man who found himself in court one day. After a long trial the jury found him innocent. Later that day though the man went back and asked the judge to issue a warrant for his lawyer’s arrest. The judge was surprised.  “Why do you want your lawyer arrested,” the judge asked.  “If it wasn’t for him you’d be in jail.” “I know,” the man replied, “but when he found out that I don’t have the money to pay him he went out and took the car I stole.”

If you want a serious example of someone who doesn’t have enough guilt, consider the Boston man who decided a few years ago to sue the Marriott Hotel in Copley Square.  It seems the man got drunk in the hotel’s lounge and then broke his leg when he went outside and fell off a curb. Thomas Breshnahan claims the hotel’s bartender was at fault because he allowed him to become intoxicated.  (Boston Herald, September 15, 2003)

Unfortunately, we’ve created a society that makes it easy for people like the unrepentant thief.  That’s because we’ve created a society where you don’t have to be responsible for your actions.  We’ve created a society where you’re not supposed to make people feel guilty. You can even see that way of thinking in some theological circles. For example, did you know that sin is considered a bad word these days? We don’t call them sins anymore. We call them transgressions. “Let us confess our transgressions to God.” That sounds nicer don’t you think? Or sometimes what you hear is, “Let us confess our humanity to God.”  That’s even better.  I don’t know about you but I’ll confess that I’m a human being any day of the week and twice on Sunday if you want.

Some people don’t have enough guilt. Some people, on the other hand, have too much guilt.  Maybe that’s you. That happens when you feel guilty for things that really aren’t all that important. For example, you forget someone’s name. Or you get stuck in traffic and end up five minutes late for an appointment.  Or instead of getting an A on an exam you get a B+.  In the first example you feel guilty because it means you were disrespectful.  In the second example you feel guilty because it means you were inconsiderate and in the third example you feel guilty because it means you were lazy.  You didn’t study hard enough.

Some people have too much guilt. That may be the way a Japanese taxi driver felt one day  after he made a stupid but honest mistake. It happened when an American tourist got into his taxi cab. Now the tourist didn’t speak any Japanese and the taxi driver didn’t speak any English. The tourist anticipated that problem though. He solved it by showing the taxi driver a book of matches with the name and address of his hotel on it.  After a couple of puzzled looks the taxi driver’s face lit up and off they went. The tourist wasn’t too happy though when the taxi cab came to a stop and he found himself standing not in front of his hotel, but in front of the factory that made the matches.

Do you feel guilty when you make an honest mistake? Do you feel guilty when something goes wrong and it isn’t your fault? Do you feel guilty when something isn’t quite right and in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that important? Some people have too much guilt.  Maybe that’s you. Not only do you feel guilty when you should feel guilty, but you also feel guilty when you shouldn’t feel guilty, and no matter what you say or do you can’t get rid of all that guilt.

There is a solution to that problem of course. You do the same thing that the penitent thief did that day when he was crucified with Jesus. He brought his guilt to the Son of God who was on the Cross next to him.  “…we indeed have been condemned justly,” he said, “for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”

By the way, the penitent thief wasn’t faking it when he expressed his remorse. He wasn’t trying to pull the wool over Jesus’ eyes. He really meant it.  You can tell that he wasn’t faking it by looking closely at what he said.  If he was faking it he would have then said, “Okay Jesus. Now that I’ve told you that I’m sorry, why don’t you get me down from this cross?”  That’s not what he did though.  Instead of doing that he accepted his guilt. He accepted his punishment and simply asked Jesus to be merciful to him in the life to come.  “Jesus,” he said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” After hearing those simple and sincere words Jesus turned to the penitent thief and made him a promise.  It was a promise that allowed him to let go of his guilt and die in peace.  Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Those words assure everyone who is truly gentle and lowly in heart that in Jesus there is forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace. With his dying breath Jesus promised paradise to all who bring their guilt to him in a spirit of honesty and humility. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live your life without that promise. That was something that novelist Marghanita Kaski had to do though. She had to do that because she was a self-professed atheist. Even so, that didn’t stop her from making a sad confession one day to a friend who happened to be a Christian.  “What I envy most about you Christians,” she said, “is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me.”

At the heart of the Christian faith is the assurance that we have someone who forgives us. That’s why I sometimes remind people that the gates of hell are never locked from the outside. They’re always locked from the inside. All you have to do is open that gate in a spirit of honesty and humility and accept the forgiveness that’s waiting for you on the other side. When you accept that forgiveness and realize that it’s okay to forgive yourself that’s when you find the peace that the world cannot give or take away.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

March 12, 2006