The Two Robbers
Luke 23:39-43 Matt 27:44 Mark15:32 John 19:18 Ps 31:9-10
I’d set myself an afternoon to really get to grips with these talks but after a while at my computer I was tempted by the sunshine to go along to St Matthew’s School where they were hosting a six a side football tournament. I spent quite a bit of time standing with Phil Greene, a permanently tracksuited member of staff who runs the football at St Matthew’s. He lives each school game as if it is was a Wembley cup final.
Every comment he made from the touchline was encouraging “Well done James, lovely football Darren” – but under his breath he was an anxious man “We’re going to lose Fr Andrew, I can see it coming, we’re not going to be good enough.
The outward optimism we show in life is often countered by a feeling inside that actually things are not going well. We end up saying the best we can – whilst inside fearing the worst.
It strikes me that this can be true of our prayer – we want to trust God that everything will work out in the end, we want to believe that he is in control – but sometimes we wonder, sometimes we’re exasperated with His inaction, his seeming desire to lead us right into the valley of the shadow of death – with no respite.
The Psalmist expresses these depths so poignantly
My eye is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also
My life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing
My strength fails me because of my misery and my bones waste away.
We’re thinking next about the two robbers who hung either side of Jesus as he died
What sort of witnesses were they to the passion of Our Lord – how were their lives caught up in the dying breath of our saviour?
Tradition has separated these two up into a goody and a baddy.
One who seemingly understood about Jesus and would find himself in paradise.
another who continued to rail against our Saviour and whose destiny is unreported.
The penitent and the unrepentant.
The Gospels vary in their approaches to this little encounter.
Matthew stands a far off – he treats the robbers identically – they both revile Jesus.
Mark is in amongst the crowd and tells us the robbers just raised their voices in dissention along with the Chief Priests, the scribes and the general multitude..
In John, the robbers are mute – they have nothing to say - the simple point to be made is that Jesus was crucified as a common criminal.
Luke is the one who draws nearer than the rest.
Luke claims to be within earshot of them.
He comes right to the foot of the cross and exclusively records these exchanges between the three victims.
Luke’s Gospel, like no other, has always had an eye to the effect Jesus had on the outsider. Dubious women with flasks of oil, unclean women with terrible illnesses, groups of lepers.and swindling tax gatherers.
These are to the forefront in Luke’s account and here at the cross he’s bending his ear as close as he can to find out what’s being said to these men on the margins as if to learn just how far the mercy of God really does go.
I’d like us to consider that the words of the robbers might in fact be prayers rather than angry exchanges and that each of them has something to teach us about the way we approach God.
The first robber to speak is angry “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
Our inclination is to look down our noses at this outburst and yet he has struck on truth in a big way.
Are you not the Christ? – the answer is of course – yes he is.
Well, then do what Christ’s do save yourself and us.
Isn’t this what we pray sometimes – if you are the Christ – come down into this mess – save us from our predicament and save yourself from a diminishing reputation
.
Old Testament prayer is very much this sort of thing. Of the patriarchs and the prophets daring to raise their voices to God – so that the people might be saved – and you too Yahweh ,as they called him, you too need to show yourself as a God above all Gods, who acts to save his people – who acts because in his covenant relationship, you said you would!
I will soon be starting confirmation groups and already the questions are lining up for me to explain why God lets things happen that can’t be right.
“Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us”
Have you not prayed that or wished you had the courage to.
There are times when I have left a bedside and this has been my prayer.
I might have all the theological answers about suffering and death – but when hearts are breaking, good things are denied and I have nothing worth saying other than platitudes– I want to interrogate Christ about Himself!
Yes, frankly, I am cheering the unrepentant thief on.
The other robber rebukes the first. Never mind the blatant honesty of the outburst, what matters is the guilt, he seems to be saying.
The guilt means that the two of them are deserving of death compared with the innocence of Jesus. Sentence has been passed on them two of them and they must take the rap ..unless..well.. unless!
. His prayer when it comes is gentler than the other.
“Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom”
He’s not sure what that kingdom is made up of – he doesn’t call Jesus the Christ – like the other thief – but he sees a goodness there, a goodness evident at a time of trial – a goodness that reaches into the most hopeless situation – and movingly now, the robber – reaches out towards it.
“Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”
Guilty as charged he maybe – no actual words of repentance and forgiveness articulated – yet he is welcomed home.
Here is – the last prodigal son of Jesus earthly ministry.
This prayer does not seek justification or yet complete understanding – it just casts itself upon Jesus, even a dying Jesus, and believes in a future through him.
This prayer has been made into a beautiful Taize chant for which there are no other words than the repetition “Jesus remember when you come into your kingdom”
Because no other prayer is ever really necessary ,if you can utter that prayer with all your heart.
If ever you are unsure what to pray this prayer has it – remember me Lord, remember me in the context of your kingdom, which you have said in all your parables is open to us all.
But what do you say of the first thief? If only Luke had told us!
I think he might have deliberately left it as an open question for us.
As if to say:
You’ve read my interpretation of things in my Gospel and seen how Jesus reached out to those on the edge – what do you now think happened to that other robber.
Especially knowing that in many respects – he’s the one most like you.
I like to think paradise became open for him too.
The two robbers were put to death upon crosses . Both of them
And although the benefits of Jesus’ death touch the destiny of anyone who has ever lived, these two are chronologically the first for whom the cross makes a difference.
The first robber then is an early test case of the wideness of his mercy.
To me not just a witness of what happened to Jesus – but of what can happen to people like you and I.
Later in the Psalm I quoted earlier such optimism and hope comes bursting through.
The sort of prayer made by one for whom paradise becomes a reality.
For me there’s always got to be two robbers not one who raise their voices in such praise:
My times are in thy hand, deliver me from the hand of my persecutors. Let thy face shine on thy servant , save me in thy steadfast love.
O how abundant is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for those who fear thee and wrought for those who take refuge in thee
Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as in a besieged city
For thou didst hear my supplications – when I cried to thee for help.
RH 10.4.09