NO WONDER THEY CALL HIM THE SAVIOR
Colossians 1: 11-20
Luke 23: 33-43

           There is a story told of a burglary at a department store some years ago. It was quite an odd sort of burglary in that the burglars took nothing from the store when they left. Instead, they swapped the price tags of virtually everything in the store; keep in mind that this was in the days before UPC codes and computerized scanners and cash registers. All of a sudden, the expensive tools in the hardware section were “marked down” drastically and the inexpensive items in the stationary department were drastically inflated. This price swap isn’t even the craziest part of the story. No…the craziest part is that the next morning the store operated “business as usual” for four hours before the prank was uncovered; FOUR HOURS! For four hours, this store operated on a distorted, or skewed, value system.

           If we stop and think, and we don’t have to think too hard, the world in which we live is ruled by a distorted value system. The society of the world has evolved, or devolved, to the point where those things that, in the long run, are of extreme importance are given the least importance and those things that, in the long run, aren’t really that important are given the most time, energy, resources, etc. If you want a more concrete example of this, look at the wage scale in the United States. In 2009, the MINIMUM salary for a Major League Baseball player was $400,000; the average salary was closer $3 million. Four-hundred thousand dollars, at a minimum, to play a game! Contrast that with the average salary of an EMT. I’m going to go out a limb and assume that most of us, for ourselves or someone in our family, have been on the receiving end of assistance from an EMT; sometimes that assistance has been life-saving. Want to know what the average salary of an EMT was in 2009? It was roughly $27,000. How skewed is that?! Playing a game, albeit with much talent and at a high level, could earn you $400,000 while working to assist those in urgent need, at times in extreme conditions, could only earn around $27,000.

           The reality is that human worth has come to be measured by two criteria: appearance and performance. If you can look pretty, sport the latest fashions or set the newest fashion, the world says you are valuable. If you can play a game, make millions of dollars without much work, or be in control of large numbers of people/products, the world says you are valuable. If you can do neither of these, the world says you are less valuable than those who can and uses that reasoning to justify pushing people aside or “further down the ladder”. Let me ask you this: if we subscribe to these criteria for determining worth to society, where does that leave our children our senior citizens? Where does that leave those with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities? Where does that leave the poor, the uneducated, or the homeless? Where does that leave most of US?

           Fortunately, the story doesn’t stop there. Remember that this is the world’s value system; IT IS NOT GOD’S VALUE SYSTEM!! In God’s eyes, we count and we have worth because we are the creation of God. This was one of the biggest things Jesus tried to get people to understand. Recall where we usually see Jesus: He was in the presence and homes of “sinners”—the unholy and unrighteous, he didn’t withdraw in disgust from the lepers or those with other conditions that made them “unclean”. He was often criticized for this, but used those moments to explain that God cared about even those who society said were unimportant.

           We see this on display in our passage from Luke, in the last hours of Jesus’ life on Earth. If ever there were any two people who could be consider worthless to the world, it was these two criminals being crucified with Jesus. One of them joined in mocking Jesus, but the other realized Jesus wasn’t like them. We don’t know much about this guy. We know he was crucified—remember crucifixion was reserved for the lowest of the low in the Roman Empire, it was a punishment for slaves and non-citizens of Rome. Outside of that, we don’t know anything about him. Maybe he was a part of one of the crowds that listened to Jesus preach. Maybe he was present to see Jesus work a miracle. Maybe he only knew Jesus as a beaten, bleeding, crucified preacher/trouble-maker, but something told him Jesus might just be his only prayer.

           What happens next is perhaps one of the most beautiful conversations in all of Scripture. This criminal, nailed to the cross and gasping for each labored breath turns his eyes toward Jesus and asks for mercy. Jesus, equally nailed to the cross and laboring for breath responds, “this day you will be with me in Paradise”. Did you catch that? Jesus tells this guy that TODAY you will be in Paradise, not someday later, not at Judgment Day, but TODAY. I tell you, a crucified criminal never heard such glorious words. His death was excruciatingly painful, but I have to believe that he clung to this promise as he took his last breath.

           Upon hearing these words of Jesus, the immediate question becomes, “WHY?”. Why in the world would Jesus promise paradise to this guy? After all, he was in the final hours of his life; he couldn’t really do anything for the Kingdom of God. It wasn’t as if he was going to come off the cross and go home to tell family or friends about Jesus. The Samaritan woman could go and tell anyone who would listen about the Messiah who promised that, one day, there would no longer be Jew or Samaritan. Zaccheaus, he of the children’s song, could continue to give to the poor and advocate for them. This crucified criminal could do NOTHING, yet Jesus promised him Paradise. Why? Because he was worth something to God! He had worth simply because he existed. His worth was inborn; it was cemented the moment he became a twinkle in the eye of God, and there was nothing anything in this world could do to diminish that worth.

           The same is true for each of us. Our value, our worth, was cemented the moment we became a twinkle in the eye of God. Just as there was nothing the world could do to diminish this guy’s worth to God, so, too, there is nothing the world can do to diminish our worth to God. Remember that the next time someone tries to put a price-tag on your worth. You can look them in the eyes and spirit and say “I’M WORTH MORE THAN THAT”!!! I’M WORTH THE BLOOD, THE SWEAT, THE TEARS, AND THE PAIN OF THE SON OF GOD!! And there’s nothing you can do to take that away from me!

           Remember the way Jesus loves you and died for you…and smile. Smile… because we don’t deserve a love like that, no matter how “good” we are. It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t have and it doesn’t matter whether we’ve “been good” or not, Jesus loves us each with a love that is impossible to comprehend. Smile…because somewhere in heaven, there is a once-crucified criminal walking the streets of gold that knows more about love and grace than a thousand preachers or theologians. No wonder they call Jesus the Savior. AMEN.



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