There wasn't one cross, there were three. This fact makes the rather short list of items reported by all four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each in describing the crucifixion of Jesus makes a point of saying it was a group execution. Jesus is not even given the distinction of a spot-lighted solo martyrdom; he's dumped in to make a party of three, a last-minute addition to someone else's execution.
We all know about the placard hung above Jesus' head: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." This was standard at a crucifixion. Post the name and the crime with the horribly dying body so all who pass by can see: the state records names, and if you do what these did, here's your fate. If the other two crosses had placards, the names didn't survive into the Bible's accounts, just their crime. "Bandits," we're told meaning insurrectionists against Roman rule, guerillas, ambushing a convoy here, hitting an outpost there, taking and killing where they could. Luke just calls them both "evildoers." So there is Jesus, keeping the same kind of company as always. As in his ministry, so now more grimly in his death, he embodies the words of a long-ago prophet: "he was numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12)
And those two, wouldn't you know, are split over him. One of them reviles him, like others at the scene. Let's assume he has his reasons. Awful pain has seized him, and the panic of dying in his throat maybe for an instant some mad hope had struck him that the so-called messiah really might pull something off. But then, no, he can plainly see that the so-called messiah is already nearly dead and isn't that just like hope, to die before you do! So he screams bitter words at the crucified Jesus.
The other Gospels say that both bandits railed against Jesus, but Luke says: actually, one of them defended him and said to his comrade, "Do you not fear God? You and I are guilty. We earned this. But this man did nothing wrong."
And then he does something that no one else in all the Gospels ever did. He addresses Jesus simply by his name. Others called him Teacher, Rabbi, Master, Lord, a very few said, Jesus Son of David. But in the whole record, no one even once just called him by his simple name. Only now does it happen, from someone who is dying. This is how the dying speak: each word simple and earnest as breath. "Jesus."
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." That's the whole of what he said. "Think of me, Jesus. Remember. In your kingdom."
Who knows if, as he spoke, he really thought Jesus in his own death struggle could even hear the words. But the head of Jesus lifts, the great face turns, and words are given back: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
Any number of people overhearing such an exchange between two convicts bleeding to death would have no doubt this was delirium talking, just the nonsense of two delusional dying fools. We might think so ourselves if we're just observing all this from some safe analytical distance. But I doubt we should assume any distance for ourselves.
I think this story is asking us to imagine that we are dying, which, of course, we are. In a way, the man talking with Jesus from his own cross is a sign of what Jesus' death cannot do for us; it cannot deliver us from dying. That's us up there, our lives draining away slowly, but steadily, irreversibly. And some of us can see ourselves in him not just because we're dying. Some of us know that we also are guilty as hell, that our lives have done actual damage, some of it by terrible choices we made, some of it through dreadful systems that we are simply part of. And we are in no more position to undo any of it than if we were pinned and suspended from the ground like that evildoer. What a vision of our awful powerlessness he is, fixed like that and finished and nothing even left he can ask for, just this simple, dumb request "Jesus? Think of me? In your kingdom?"
It's just about what we say if we understand our position. And this one, the first of us to say it, heard an answer for us too. Only it's so far beyond an answer to what he actually asked. It's like a beggar asked a king for a penny and the king gave him the whole kingdom. Someone with nothing prays, "Remember me when," and Jesus answers with the whole green garden of God, this very day.
See how silly and how sad we are, hoping somehow to get things right, wishing we knew what we don't, dreaming of resolving our lives, if we could just get it right and think right, if we could somehow get it prayed right. The dying criminal shows how badly we miss the point. The point is not to get all of it right, or any of it right not now, not for people who are dying and who have no power but to want and to need and to ask the homeliest, simplest thing. "Jesus, remember me."
For the longest time now, Christ has been quite fluent in the language of the dying. He spoke it himself when he said to his own poor friends, "Remember me." He hears that language very well. And when we, however crudely, speak it toward him, or sob it or sigh it because we can't begin to say what we really need, his ruined hand still reaches for the Paradise gate and opens it wide. It is opened not just for us to pass through on some far-off tomorrow. It is open to us this very day, to grant us the sweet, abiding company of the One who does indeed remember us, and gives us abundantly more than we had known to ask.
