MIDWEEK LENTEN MESSAGE
February 24, 2010
Based on the Second Last Word from the Cross – “Promise” and “Home”

Jesus’ made a promise to the criminal – today you will be with me in paradise. Fulfilling the promise he made to the disciples when he was trying to help them understand that He must leave them, but His leave taking wasn’t the end of the story. “I will come again,” Jesus told them, “and I will take you to where I am so that where I am there you will be also.” In essence -- you will be at home with me. Surely the criminal did not deserve such a promise but the promise was there for him, just the same, undeserved, unearned; just as the promise is there for us, always.

As I’ve pondered this second word of Christ from the Cross, I have also become so very aware of the amount of homelessness there is all around us, with more and more people losing their jobs every day. And tonight is no different. There is something about the evening that makes us all seem fragile and vulnerable, as if all the tender places in our hearts are exposed and all our hurts and our gladness are right on the surface.

We look, in the fragile light of evening, for the help and comfort that the helpless look for. The darkness deepens; Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

We may even sometimes wonder; does God really live in me? Can it be?

Abide is a wondrous word, I think. In the Greek it is the word meno. It means more than just to “remain.” It has a greater sense of permanence to it, of having a home that has no division. Sure sounds like paradise to me!

There are no broken homes here. There are no orphans. There are none excluded because of race, gender, or physical impairment. When Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you,” he is saying, “I have come and made my home with you. Now, make your home in me.” In essence, the criminal on the cross is accepting that unspoken promise that He, too, will make his home with Jesus; and Jesus responds promptly, “Today you will be with me in paradise:” A very present reality.

In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 21 verse 3; John of Patmos speaks this word of hope to people who feel helpless: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.”

Having a sense of home is an important basic feeling for humans. We want to believe that there is a place where we will always be welcome and comfortable, a place where we are safe from the harshness of the world, from fire and flood. Card stores and gift shops, desk tops and refrigerator doors are full of sayings about home: “Home is where the heart is” “There’s no place like home” “Home is where they always have to take you in.” When my oldest son, Bob, was serving aboard a fast-attack nuclear powered submarine in the Pacific, he sent me a Mother’s Day card that I will forever cherish. It said simply, “Wherever I wander, wherever I roam, wherever my Mom is will always be home.” We all care deeply about having a place where we belong.

The home Jesus makes in us (and that we have in him) is not an illusion. There is nothing sentimental about the place where Jesus will take us. It is the firm and absolute promise of a home that is life itself. It is a safe place, free from the terrors of this world; it offers loving, nurturing, caring. It is a place where we can grow and be productive. It is full of sisters and brothers. It is what a real home should be. It is Paradise.

Jesus makes a home among us, the helpless, the vulnerable; the frightened. And even, more accurately, especially, in our fragility, Jesus reminds us that because of His promises, we can know that true life is ours, right now today, this night. Amen. So Let It Be.