Rev. Nick Cheek
Isaiah 53: 7-9 and Luke 23: 35-43
Sharron’s nerves were rising as she entered the hall. She had spent a better part of the day picking out what to wear and texting some of her old friends, making sure they would be in attendance. Avoiding the dance floor like the plague, Sharron made her way towards the bar and hors d’oeuvres while humming what the DJ was playing; “Wonderwall” by Oasis. It was her 30th high school reunion. As she sipped her drink, awkward minutes continued to pass as familiar feelings began to grow within her… feelings of anxiety and fear she felt as a freshman years ago. “Will anyone recognize me… will anyone remember me… Should I leave or should I go?” When she finished her drink, she made the decision to bolt… but on the way towards the exit, someone called out her name. “Sharron!” She turned around, and the woman before her continued, “It’s so good to see you! I can’t believe how long it’s been. You look great!” As the women reminisced on the classes they shared and the time they worked on the homecoming float together… Sharron’s mind was blank. Her greatest fear went from not being remembered by others… to not being able to remember someone else.
And so, Sharron did what we all do in these situations… we smile… nod… agree with whatever this person is saying… and use every non-specific identifier possible. “It’s so great to see you too… girl. It looks like time has been good to you… my friend.” And then we ask a million questions and pray that someone else comes along who says this person’s name out loud. Church… we’ve all been there.
The point of this story is this: we all desire to be remembered. We do. It’s one of our profound human needs. We want to be remembered for our contributions to society… for our achievements. That’s why we hang up our diplomas on the walls of our office… or why we place awards, ribbons, or trophies somewhere for folks to see. When children find their artwork on the refrigerator or their pictures on shelves and in albums under the coffee table, it reminds them that they are known and loved. They are remembered. When parents receive phone calls from their adult children or grandkids for no apparent reason other than to check in, they are filled with joy because they know they are thought of and missed. They are remembered. One of the most common questions people ask when approaching the end of life is, “How will I be remembered? Who will miss me long after I’m gone?”
Most of the time, when we talk about being remembered, we picture the best moments of our lives. But life does not always end in its best moments. Sometimes it ends in places we never would have imagined. Sometimes life ends in pain… in fear… in loneliness. That is where Luke takes us today. He brings us to a hillside outside of Jerusalem… where three men, each on a cross, wait for their deaths. We know Jesus… but not the other two. We don’t know their history… we don’t know their stories… we don’t even get to know their names. And here… in this space… the same question is pondered. As one man on the cross angrily and bitterly mocks Jesus, the other man is assessing his life. This man has regrets… he wishes it hadn’t turned out like this.
And the intriguing thing about this man is that he never asks for forgiveness. That is what we might assume this story to be about… We may be tempted to think that this story is about a last-ditch effort to inherit salvation… to be saved. But this man never asks for grace… nor does he rattle off all of his past sins. Instead, he asks for something else. Something that, it seems, is more important to him… more important to his soul as a human being. He turns to Jesus and says, “Remember me.”
For the Roman Empire at this time, crucifixion was brutal. It was not only a method of execution, it was a political instrument used to invoke fear and submission. The cross was designed to send a message. Rome did not crucify quietly or accidentally, they did so to silence uprisings. It was state power declaring: this is what happens to those who challenge us. The goal was not merely to end a life, but to erase dignity, to brand the condemned as the enemy… and to warn everyone watching that Rome alone defined whose life, whose purpose, whose cause, whose voice mattered and would be allowed to endure.
The late James Cone was a longtime professor at Union Theological Seminary and is widely recognized as the founder of Black Liberation Theology. In his 2011 book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Cone draws a connection between the Roman cross and the American lynching tree, revealing how both expose the violence of systems that crucify the innocent and silence the lowly. He writes, “Just like the lynching tree, the cross was a site of humiliation and terror. Both were public spectacles, instruments of state power meant to control the oppressed.” Cone repeatedly argues that the cross exposes the moral bankruptcy of systems that claim ethical or legal authority while at the same time oppressing the vulnerable.
Our story this morning invites us to ponder difficult questions about power in our own time. Rome is not the only institution that has used imprisonment and execution to define who belongs and who does not. Around the world, we still see crosses raised in different forms. We see them in places where political dissidents disappear in the middle of the night. We see crosses when journalists are silenced. When ethnic minorities are driven from their homes. We see crosses in the shape of cells and steel doors… mass incarceration. We see them in the form of rhetoric that reduces people made in the image of God to “invaders,” “criminals,” “monsters,” or “threats.” We see crosses wherever and whenever citizenship becomes a hierarchy of worth, accents are mocked, and language becomes a reason for suspicion.
The empires of our world throughout history believed they could define who mattered and who did not. And they would always do their best to try to make us believe it, too. It wasn’t just the state that crucified Christ that day; it was also the gathering mob. But our story this morning reveals something else, too: it tells us that no system, no government, no power, no institution, and no religion gets the final word over a human being’s worth. James Cone speaks to this again and writes, “The real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and at the same time humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst. You cannot identify with the cross of Jesus without identifying also with the suffering of the victims in our own society.”
A few weeks ago, I preached about Jesus descending the mountain after the Transfiguration… He’s up there with Peter and James and John… engulfed in bright light. And in this moment, Jesus makes a choice… instead of remaining up there safe and secure… he chooses to ditch the white robe. He chooses to come down to where we are – into our mess – into our sin. And as he descended, we assume he knew where the road would take him… that he knew it would end with the pain of the cross. I don’t want us to miss this part of this Lenten story. In his crucifixion, Jesus aligned himself with the rejected. He did not merely observe their suffering; he inhabited it. He joined their anguish and carried their story in his own body. He entered into a full and terror-filled incarnation. Which means… church… we don’t serve a God who safely waits on the other side of our suffering. We do not serve a God who bypasses the pain and violence of our world. We don’t serve a God who watches from a throne in the clouds. We serve a God who entered fully into humanity. God, in Christ Jesus, is there, among the condemned and the falsely accused.
And in that place, Jesus speaks mercy. When the crucified man asks, “Will you remember me…” it represents not only him, but all the despised of our world asking that same question… “Will you remember us – even when power and empire and the mob say otherwise?” And Jesus’ answer… is clear… “Yes. I will remember you. Yes… I see you… Yes… I hear you… Your life is worth something… I will not forget you… Today, you will be with me… in paradise.”
On the night before he would find himself dying on a cross… on the night before the nails… before the flogging… before the abandonment… Jesus sits at a table with his friends. They celebrate the Passover meal. He knows what is coming. He knows the path forward. And as the bread is broken and the cup is shared, he expresses the same human need we all have… He looks at his disciples and says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Even Jesus longed to be remembered, just as we do. And what a grand calling we have, church: to leave this place each week bearing witness to his life, his death, and his resurrection, by remembering those the world forgets.
Friends, hear and believe the good news: You are remembered. You are loved. You are made in the image of God… now and always.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.