{"id":4186,"date":"2022-04-10T04:24:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-10T10:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2022-04-10T04:24:42","modified_gmt":"2022-04-10T10:24:42","slug":"the-last-seven-words-of-jesus-today-you-will-be-with-me-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2022\/04\/the-last-seven-words-of-jesus-today-you-will-be-with-me-in-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Seven Words of Jesus: \u201cToday, you will be with me in Paradise.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s meditation reflects on the second of the Last Seven Words of Jesus.\u00a0 All seven passages are from the Gospels, and they often serve as the focus of the church\u2019s prayers on Good Friday.\u00a0 Given the length of each mediation, I have chosen to offer one a day, ending on Good Friday.\u00a0 This is the second of eight meditations.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had not focused on it before, but the biblical commentaries on this passage are appallingly thin and equally pedantic.\u00a0 Broadly speaking, they divide into two categories: Catholic and Protestant.<\/p>\n

The Catholic commentaries reflect on the relationship between the words of Jesus and the creeds that declare that \u201cJesus descended into hell\u201d or they muse at length about how the language of \u201cParadise,\u201d which may or may not be a direct reference to heaven and might allow room for a doctrine of Purgatory.\u00a0 Predictably, Protestant commentaries go on at length about how this passage precludes a doctrine of Purgatory.\u00a0 They dwell, instead, on how the passage might suggest we all go immediately to heaven when we die.<\/p>\n

Neither concern is really the point of Jesus\u2019 words.\u00a0 If the passage were a painting, most of what is written on the subject would sound like a long, solemn reflection on the nature of the canvas behind the paint and the dating of the frame around the picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, you will be with me in Paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leon Wieseltier, a literary editor, and a sometime observant Jew wrote about his father\u2019s death in March of 1996.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Not particularly devoted to the practice of his faith at the time, he felt impelled to follow Jewish tradition and say the Kaddish<\/em>, or mourner\u2019s prayer, in a synagogue three times a day for eleven months.\u00a0 Based on his experiences, he wrote a memoir that recorded his experiences, struggles, and reflections.<\/p>\n

It is a book that haunts as much as it informs the reader, and Wieseltier records both the loneliness that he experiences and the ways in which the ancient Jewish practice of saying the Kaddish both leads him into a candid admission of his grief and, at the same time, comforts him. \u00a0<\/em>Days after he begins saying his prayers, Wieseltier discovers that his mother has her own struggles.\u00a0 He writes:<\/p>\n

Back in Washington, talking with my mother on the phone about our pilgrimage to Elmont.\u00a0 She says that she visited my father\u2019s grave \u201cwith anger, with more and more anger\u201d about what was done to her to family and to her people in Poland.\u00a0 She confesses that she stayed away from cemeteries for years, and was delinquent in her duty to visit the graves of her cousins in Long Island, because she did not wish to unleash the anger.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not that they\u2019re not alive, it\u2019s that they didn\u2019t have a proper end.\u201d[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Proper ends are hard to come by.\u00a0 The words of Jesus to the criminal who appeals to be heard and embraced has nothing to do with the mechanics of the afterlife.\u00a0 They speak, instead, to the broken, incomplete, ragged shards that almost always accompany death.\u00a0 And, instead of offering the simple, obvious things that we can imagine, Jesus speaks to the grief of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, lovers, and friends.<\/p>\n

Nor are the words of Jesus appropriately unpacked in the words of the commentaries with endless, prosaic conversations about where we go when we die and how soon we get there.\u00a0 The words of Jesus are about a fundamental shift in the fabric of the universe, a return to the intentions of the creator, a vindication of God\u2019s claim to be God.\u00a0 And although Easter is not here yet, it is clear that God\u2019s response to the claims of death will be a resounding, earthshattering \u201cNo!\u201d\u00a0 The end is not the end at all.<\/p>\n

How have missed this so often?\u00a0 The problem, I think, is that we have been so preoccupied with what happens to ourselves, that we have misunderstood the Christian narrative.\u00a0 For far too long, we have imagined that the Christian story is about us<\/em> \u2014 about how God created us, about how our lives came unraveled, about how we were meant for life and die instead \u2014 about how God makes it right again, saves us, and we get to heaven.<\/p>\n

There are just enough elements in that story to make it plausible, and the emotional appeal is undeniable.\u00a0 Who wouldn\u2019t love a storyline that speaks to our greatest needs?\u00a0 But it is God who is at the center of Scripture\u2019s redemptive story and in saying \u201cNO\u201d to death\u2019s claims, Jesus vindicates the claims of God to be God.\u00a0 If it were not for this face-off with death, then the end really is the end and God\u2019s claims, never mind the claims that Jesus makes as God, unravel.\u00a0 Whatever fragile case God might make for bringing creation into being, death erases that creation, and \u2013 in the case of humankind \u2013 erases the image of God, which defines our existence.<\/p>\n

The words, \u201cToday, you will be with me in Paradise\u201d, are, then, words of mastery and control.\u00a0 They anticipate the vindication of God\u2019s claim to be God, and that vindication is made evident in the One who hangs on the cross and yet holds sway over the world that the Triune God has created.<\/p>\n

To be sure, our well-being is secure.\u00a0 But our healing lies not in what God does for us, but in the fact that God is God.\u00a0 As the Kaddish acclaims:<\/p>\n

Blessed<\/p>\n

And praised<\/p>\n

And glorified<\/p>\n

And raised<\/p>\n

And exalted<\/p>\n

And honored<\/p>\n

And uplifted<\/p>\n

And lauded<\/p>\n

Be the Name of the Holy One<\/p>\n

(He is Blessed!)<\/p>\n

Above all blessings<\/p>\n

And hymns and praises and consolations<\/p>\n

That are uttered in the world<\/p>\n

And say all Amen![iii]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+++++++<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, you will be with me in Paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in that moment<\/p>\n

Death loses its power,<\/p>\n

And we are freed from hopeless sorrow,<\/p>\n

Finding ourselves by your side,<\/p>\n

Reassured by your presence,<\/p>\n

Comforted by your words,<\/p>\n

Led by your love.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Wim van \u2018t Einde<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish <\/em>(New York: Vintage, 2000).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Ibid., <\/em>147ff.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> \u00a0Ibid., <\/em>xiii.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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