Left Behind? w/ Stephen Morrison W3

Anthony: Let’s transition on to our next pericope, which is Luke 23:33 – 43. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 29, which is on November the 20th.

³³ When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” They drew lots as a way of dividing up his clothing. ³⁵ The people were standing around watching, but the leaders sneered at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself if he really is the Christ sent from God, the chosen one.” ³⁶ The soldiers also mocked him. They came up to him, offering him sour wine ³⁷ and saying, “If you really are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” ³⁸ Above his head was a notice of the formal charge against him. It read “This is the king of the Jews.” ³⁹ One of the criminals hanging next to Jesus insulted him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ Responding, the other criminal spoke harshly to him, “Don’t you fear God, seeing that you’ve also been sentenced to die? ⁴¹ We are rightly condemned, for we are receiving the appropriate sentence for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ Jesus replied, “I assure you that today you will be with me in paradise.”

Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. I think it’s impossible to comprehend the magnitude of this statement. All we can do is try to apprehend it. So, I want to give you an opportunity to help us apprehend the reality contained within. What say you?

Stephen: It’s certainly one of the most beautiful and challenging statements in the New Testament, in terms of how it just really hits home. It hits us right in our heart.

And I think when I hear this, I typically think of how Barth understood the doctrine of sin and what even sin is. And I think he got it right when he said that we don’t even know the depth of our sin without first knowing the depth of Christ reconciliation, and that we have to begin with Christ.

And so, what sin is, what it is that we even need forgiven from, we don’t truly know it until we know it in the light of reconciliation. And so, I think Barth uses that to create this beautiful concept — he starts off with the humiliation of the Son of God, that God became humble and became a human being so that the human beings who try to become God see what it is to truly be human and all of these different things.

But I think that just helps us think about this in a different way where we truly don’t know sin. I think we’re very quick to label things in all of this, but I think we don’t know it in the sense where we don’t know the depth of how much it hurts, not only us, how much it hurts our society and the people we love. But how much it grieves God, most of all.

And so not knowing what we’re doing when we do these things is just what it is to be human. But I think we have a sense not only of what those things are, but more importantly, we know them truly as we are forgiven of them. And that’s the beauty of the gospel is that even the things that we don’t know that we’ve done, the sin that we are scarred by is healed and is reconciled in the power of Christ and of his death and resurrection and his life lived on our behalf.

It’s such a mystery as well. I don’t want to ever try to remove the mystery from scripture or from the beauty of what Christ has done for us. Because there is still mystery in this and there is still a sense of awe that we should always have for this.

And I think that’s the first impression that I have, and I would want to impress on everyone listening, is that this is a beautiful phrase, but it’s a terrifying and awe-inspiring phrase. And that we are forgiven in spite of not knowing what we do and the person on the cross with them received this promise of being with them today in paradise and how paradoxical that even feels.

But it really strikes to the core for me of what it is to reconcile to God. It’s not something that we do. It’s purely a gift of grace and how wonderful that is. It just really gets to the heart of how beautiful the gospel can be and how inspiring it is for us. And how challenging as well it can be for us.

Anthony: Yeah. You spoke of the mystery of this beauty. Let’s press in there a little bit more because the criminal asked Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. It just strikes me, isn’t this really the cry for all of humanity, whether we know it or not? And so, where is the hope for that criminal and all the rest of us criminals out here trying to do this thing called life.

Stephen: Yeah, that really hits it on the head. That is all of us. That’s our cry as human beings, that’s what we cry out.

The cross is such a – not only in this passage, in all the other words of Christ and the cross and the witness to that in scripture – is such a beautiful account of this sense of people crying out and having this, “my God, you forsaken me” for example, being one. And that sense of trust, “into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

All of these, I think have a reflection in what it is to be human. And I think it just is such a beautiful portrait of not only who we are, but really the depths of how far Christ went into our humanity and into the darkness of our fallenness and really met us in our rawness, in our in our ignorance and in our sin and in our evil and met us really at the depths of that.

Calvin has a great phrase where “he became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” He truly met us where we are. And yeah, certainly a cry that is mimicked and echoed within humanity.

And I think the remembrance of God is the hope that we have that Christ does hold us in the remembrance. And I think there’s something really beautiful that I was reading recently about how in the Hebrew scriptures, the act of remembrance is such an important priority. Today, we overlook that. We just think, oh, just memory, it’s just something you have. It’s almost an object.

But, for them, remembering an event that took place was almost an act of remixing it and reliving it. And the remembrance of what God had done — particularly like in the Exodus or in other events of God’s acts in history with Israel — remembering it was almost as important as the actual event itself. The beginning of the 10 commandments states that, “I’m the Lord, your God who liberated you from the Egyptian captivity.” And then the commandments come.

And so, there’s this sense where remembrance has more of a power to it than just, oh remember me, remember that I exist factually, remember who I am. But it’s actually this sense of remember me and being revived and being in that remembrance.

And I think there’s a lot more to this than typically gets understood of just oh, remember me in your book, check me off on the list or whatever. The remembrance is this act of recalling and almost to some extent, more vital than just the factual checking of the box for us.

It’s a big source, a great source of hope for us that we will be remembered in Christ and that he not only has our name, one among billions, but that truly remembers who we are and that remembrance brings us back to back to him. And it foreshadows and points to the resurrection that’s the great remembrance that in Christ we are raised again to new life.

And the kingdom that is to come is that kingdom of new life. And yeah, it’s a very pregnant phrase for sure.

Anthony: Yes. Pregnant, indeed. The word even, remember – there’s so much you can unpack there with the resurrection and the way that Jesus and his Father. Remember us in the triune life. What a beautiful thing.

Now you mentioned the statement that Jesus made, why have you forsaken me? And I’d like to scratch that itch just a little bit more, if I may. Anything that you want to say about some of the atonement theories out there?

Just to let you in on some insight on the way I think. Things like punitive theories, like penal substitution, substitutionary atonement, has done a lot of damage in terms of the way that we see the relationship, the triune relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit, revealed at the cross.

Anything that you want to say about that?

Stephen: Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on this. I think we could derail the whole full show.

But I definitely agree. I think penal substitution to is one of those things that for me, an early joy in discovery for theology was just the reality that’s not the only way of looking at the cross.

And I think tearing down some of those presuppositions that come with it, the idea of God being this angry father and then Jesus just being the nice guy that steps in takes the blow, the whole narrative of that. And so yeah, there’s a lot of ways where that divides the Trinity itself. Like you said, that’s extremely problematic.

I’ll throw a little plug in. I did do a long video series on penal substitution on my YouTube channel. That’s a good, I think, primer into some of these questions and how they can be addressed.

But yeah, I do think, like you said, the [statement] “my God, why you forsaken me?” I think the first way that I understand it is really it proclaims the depth of how far Christ went into our fallen mind, into our fallen situation. And that he truly touched the depths of what it is to feel forsaken.

Now did the father actually forsake the son? I don’t think that’s possible. The father and the Son are one. Even Jesus said a few verses before that everyone else will abandon me, but my father will be with me. And I think that’s confirmed with the word that “into your spirit or into your hands, I commend my spirit,” at the conclusion of that. And yeah, there’s a lot there.

Reflecting back on how it ties back into Psalms 22 – which is what Christ is actually quoting with this phrase – the end of that Psalm, ends in this triumphant realization that God did not abandon, did not forsake his servant; and so, there’s that aspect as well. Taking just that verse by itself without recognizing the context to it, and the fact that he was declaring something that had a very profound meaning to the listeners who would’ve known instantly, oh, I know that song. I know the way that ends and it’s not this hopeless, pitiful situation.

But it truly is one where even in that depth of feeling so god-forsaken, God has entered into that god-forsakenness and made it his own. And in that sense, redeemed it and found us even in that depth where even if I make my bed in hell, you were there.

And so that’s a beautiful insight too. Where even in the most pitiful in the depth of despair that we can find ourselves in, Christ has even penetrated into that depth and met us there and comforted us in that moment and brought us to a new life as a result.

Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.