Lesson 13 | May 24
Lesson 8 | January 20
GRACE TO THE DYING THIEF Lesson: Luke 23:32-33, 39-43 • Background: Luke 23:32-43 When we considered Jesus’ crucifixion on Palm/ Passion Sunday, we read Mark’s account. Like Matthew after him (27:44), Mark reports the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus mocked him as onlookers and passersby did (15:32). But whether Luke is drawing from a tradition unknown to his fellow evangelists or is exercising some divinelyinspired artistry, Luke tells us only one of those criminals berated Jesus. The other sought and received Jesus’ blessing. Specifically, this man asked Jesus to “remember” him when he, Jesus, begins to reign as “the king of the Jews” (verse 38). This man’s plea echoed the cries of the psalm-singer (106:4) and those of others who called to God for help (for instance, Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:11 or the prophet in Jeremiah 15:15). The God of Israel—the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ—is a God who remembers, both individuals and God’s people, in times of trouble, and who takes action to save (Genesis 8:1; 19:29; Psalm 132:1; Jeremiah 31:20). It’s this divine memory on which the one condemned man depended. Only if Jesus remembers him as God remembers does he have any hope beyond death. What moves the one man to rebuke the other, to refuse to join that other’s mockery of Jesus and to throw himself, pinned though he is to his cross, on Jesus’ mercy instead? Why should he think this man whom he knows Rome is executing unjustly has any power to save him? We can’t know for certain, but perhaps the way in which Jesus meets death strikes him. Luke records no anguished cry from Jesus, as Matthew and Mark do. Luke makes no notice of Jesus thirsting, as John does. Far from it. Luke alone reports—in a verse not all manuscripts of the Gospel include—that Jesus prayed for God to forgive those responsible for his crucifixion because they acted in ignorance (verse 34). Scholar R. Alan Culpepper surveys the evidence for and against the verse having been an original part of Luke’s Gospel and concludes it “favors accepting the prayer as authentic,” in part because it “fits Luke’s style, the Lukan emphasis on forgiveness, and Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ death as a model for Christian www.AdultBibleStudies.com/MatureYears
9781501876967_INT_90_92.indd 91
martyrs.”1 And when Luke recounts the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, in his Acts of the Apostles, he includes Stephen’s similar intercession on behalf of those who stone him (Acts 7:60). The man who taught his disciples to pray for those who mistreat them (Luke 6:28) practiced what he preached, even facing his own death. Is it possible the one criminal heard Jesus’ prayer and thought that, if Jesus could ask God’s mercy for the men carrying out his unjust death sentence, Jesus might also intercede on his behalf, even though he was “receiving the appropriate sentence” for his deeds (verse 41)? Look at the scene again: Jesus hanging there between two other crucified men; one calling on him to harangue him, the other calling on him in simple supplication. “This is the only time any character [in Luke] calls Jesus by his first name only,” writes one commenter in The CEB Storyteller’s Bible, “and creates a moment of intimacy between the two.”2 And as the one crucified man figuratively moved closer to Jesus, the other figuratively moved further away. If the scene seems familiar, it’s because it’s a scene we’ve seen played out repeatedly in Luke’s Gospel: a sharp, stark division between those who reject Jesus and those who accept him. In Luke, Jesus is destined to create such division. The prophet Simeon, holding the infant Jesus in his arms, told Mary (and Joseph): “This boy is assigned to the cause of the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that generates opposition” (2:34). Once Jesus began his public ministry, it didn’t take long for that opposition to begin, either. No sooner had he preached his inaugural sermon in Nazareth, where he dared to suggest (basing his comments in Scripture, no less) that God loves and acts on behalf of Gentiles, the congregation tried to throw him off a cliff (4:29)! And on it goes—as religious authorities questioned his Sabbath activities, including the miracles of healing he performed (6:1-11; 13:10-17; 14:1-6); as various villages refused to welcome him and the apostles he sends (9:51-56; 10:14-16); as he debated other interpreters of the Torah about what God truly requires (11:27-54); as he drove out merchants from the temple (19:45-48). At point after point, as Jesus Spring 2020
91
11/1/19 1:14 PM