7 Last Words

The Second Word: “Surely, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

In the remaining moments of Jesus’s life, he receives a final request from a man whose death-by-execution is also imminent. With desperation, the man cries out: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!”

Through this plea and Jesus’s response, we catch a glimpse of how things have always been. Persons deemed less valuable by society draw near to Jesus—and he welcomes them in.

Throughout his life and ministry, Jesus expands any limitations placed on who gets to belong. Both Jesus and this man beside him are all-too-familiar with the boundaries that get constructed around the ability to belong and live with fullness. Each of them knows what it is like to move through a world where people are counted and categorized, and held then accountable to established hierarchies.

And it is within this world, where who-and-what does and does-not belong together is determined on others behalf, Jesus’s mission to ensure that all have access to life-in-abundance unfolds. The very nature of his scandalous incarnate flesh gathers up and integrates what is deemed unfit to exist together. His boundary-expanding mission is encoded even in his own body, and confronting barriers-to- belonging is unavoidable.

In times like these though, knowing and navigating norms is critical to survival—because stepping outside the lines has potentially deadly. But Jesus’s teaching, healing, and shared meals defies existing expectations. He chooses to live differently, even though tremendous risk remains.

Even though practices of narrowly assigning worth to persons and ascribing hierarchal value to bodies are acceptable, Jesus does not participate. This man dying next to Jesus knows this about him, just as he surely knows about crushing social structures that control and deny one’s ability to live fully—or even to simply continue living.

He knows what it is to be tossed aside and forgotten, and he is also well-aware of his wrongdoings—and yet he pleads for mercy, risking that perhaps he too might belong inside the boundaries of God’s paradise.

Jesus hears the cry of desperation—even while himself bound to a cross. He sees both the belovedness of this man and his profound faith.

And—yet again refusing to consider any person disposable—Jesus welcomes him into abundant life.