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The scripture reading of the morning is from the gospel according to Luke, the 23rd chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered 32. "Two others also who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place which is called the skull,

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there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying,

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'He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one.' The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar and saying, 'If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.' There was also an inscription over him, 'This is the king of the Jews.'

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One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.' But the other rebuked him, saying, 'Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

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And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.' And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' And he said to him, 'Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.'

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And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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There was a colony of ants, which was distinguished by the fact that each ant was born short one leg. Instead of having three pairs of legs, each ant had only five legs, with the result that they walked one, two, hitch.

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One, two, hitch. This colony of ants lived off rotten banana leaves. And one day, when they were in the presence of these leaves, another ant appeared amongst them.

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And this ant was perfect. He had six legs. The other ants resented him because of his perfection. They also resented him when he moved more quickly than they did. They tried to teach him to walk the same way in which they walked.

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But he was the only one among them that was not crippled. And so he did not walk one, two, hitch. One, two, hitch. He also did not eat the rotten banana leaves. He ate bread. Now they warned him that it was very bad to eat bread.

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He would be poisoned and would surely die. But the fact is, he grew to be bigger and stronger than they were. And they resented that also. Then one day, this colony of ants was attacked by another colony of ants.

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And the first thing that they set out to do was to rescue their eggs. Now the way in which they carried eggs was this. One ant would take upon his back one of the eggs. Then two other ants would crawl on top of the egg to hold it there.

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Because you see, when he would walk one, two, hitch, he would throw the egg off. So they needed the two other ants to keep the egg there on the back. And of course that made it a very heavy load for the ant on the bottom because he was carrying the egg and two other ants as well.

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And they were horrified when they saw this perfect ant go by them carrying an egg in his front two legs. And they said, "That'll never work. You'll drop the egg. You'll surely break it." And he said, "I've already made three trips and back. Let me show you how I'm doing it."

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And that was more than they could bear. And they cried out, "You have a devil and you are beside yourself and you are perverting our ways and you teach us falsely. Away with him. Kill him." And so they did.

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And they went back to living. One, two, hitch. One, two, hitch. Now to me, one of the most dumbfounding dimensions of our Lord's death upon the cross is the fact that he willingly died for those who did not appreciate at all what he was doing.

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I can conceive of how a person would offer his life for those who would value the offer. So a soldier, for example, will lay down his life for his country. And I can understand how one might even lay down one's life for someone too ignorant to understand. The man, for example, who throws himself in front of a truck in order to save a little child.

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I can conceive of those things. But it is difficult to imagine, isn't it? Willingly laying down your life for those who despise you. Think of it. Jesus is the one, two, three person.

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And he lays down his life for a world that goes one, two, hitch. One, two, hitch. And despises him for his very perfection. Now the Bible says, "In this is love." That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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But think about that. For him to have been fainting and festering under that Syrian sun because of the perversion of justice practiced by the Jews and because of what the Romans saw as a great joke.

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Now make no mistake about it. That was the point and the purpose of Pontius Pilate. We don't know a great deal about Pontius Pilate, but we do know from reliable histories of the period that he despised the Jews. He was an anti-Semite.

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He tramped upon their traditions. He misspent their monies. He ridiculed their religion. And that's the reason when he crucified Jesus, he put over his head a sign. "This is the king of the Jews." "Hey you Jews, if you're ever going to have a king, this is the way you'll end up."

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And that's also the reason that Pilate had two thieves crucified with Jesus. He was saying to the Jews, you see, on the very doorstep of their capital city of Jerusalem. He was saying, "Here is your king." "And I have put with him appropriate Jewish subjects."

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"These are his soldiers." "These are his advisors." "These are his counselors." "Back alley crooks."

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And all of this crude and bloody joke was done at the expense of Jesus. He was but a thread in the sarcasm being woven by a man who despised the Jews. And Jesus knew all of this. But still, as a one, two, three person, he offered himself for a world that goes one, two, hitch.

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For a world that perverts justice and makes fun of things that aren't fun. For a one, two, hitch world that eats things that are rotten, that consumes them and turns away from the bread of life. From a world that crawls on one another's backs. For a world that teaches its children to walk as the parents walk, selfishly and greedily and without concern for others.

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One, two, hitch. One, two, hitch. Paul Wellman in his novel, The Chain, says that as Jesus was hanging on the cross, Satan came and gave him the most severe temptation he ever received. He whispered into Jesus' ear, "They are not worth it." Now there were five times in the career of Jesus when he had specific opportunity to turn away from the cross.

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In the wilderness, Satan offered him the throne without a cross and Jesus refused the offer. At Caesarea Philippi, Peter said, "You must never let anything like this happen to you, Lord." And Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." In the area beyond Jordan, Thomas pleaded with Jesus to stay in this place of peace and not return to the peril of Judea.

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But Jesus went back to Judea. In Jerusalem, when the Greeks came, Jesus said, "What would you have me pray? 'Father, save me.'" And in Gethsemane, the opportunity again was his. But he said, "Not my will, but thine, be done."

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His face set like a flint, he walked straight to the cross, ready to die for a world that went one, two, hitch. And so I can understand why Wellman would believe that Satan would whisper into his ear, "They are not worth it." Yet, there is not a single sign that Jesus ever responded to such a temptation. In fact, quite to the contrary.

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Out of the hell of Calvary, there comes a cry. One of Pilate's jokes, a thief, cries out. One of these from the one, two, hitch world cries out, "Lord, remember me when you come to your kingdom." "Lord, I want to be one, two, three with you."

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And at that moment, in spite of the pain of it, I think Jesus must have smiled at least a little bit and said, "Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise." And thought to himself, "They are worth it." Now notice the immediacy of Jesus' reply.

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There is no delay between the request of the thief, "Lord, remember me," and Jesus' reply, "This day thou shalt be with me." It is not necessary for the thief to debate or to argue his case. It is not necessary for him to present reasons why he should be remembered. There is no bartering here. There is no dickering here.

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There are some who say that you cannot come to Jesus without preparation. I mean, certain knowledge must be yours. Certain theological presuppositions committed to. There are certain procedures that must be followed, certain ways, certain customs.

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One, two, hitch. One, two, hitch. There are churches that will not allow some people to be members. And there are other churches which are more discreet and will allow people to be members. They let them come in, but once they come in, they ignore them for the rest of the time that they are there.

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But for this thief, he just cries out, "Lord, remember me," and the response is immediate. "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." I had a minister tell me on one occasion that he took no deathbed conversion seriously. He said, "When you hear a deathbed conversion, it's almost invariably some act of desperation, and that's all it is.

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It's an act of self-interest and nothing more." Well, every minister has heard a certain number of those things, and some of us have heard a great number of them. And I said to him, and I said to him these words thinking of that thief, and let's not romanticize him. A lot of preachers and a lot of pulpits have tried to make him into some kind of attractive character,

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but the fact of the matter is he was crying out to Jesus as a kind of a last chance. There was nowhere else to go. "Lord, you're it. There isn't anything else." He comes to Jesus with no cold rationale. He comes to Jesus in extremis. If there ever was a deathbed cry, this is it.

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He is saying to Jesus, "It's you or it's nothing." And thinking of him, I said to this minister who turned away from deathbed conversions as desperate acts, I said, "I have never known an act of conversion which wasn't a desperate act." Sure, when a man on his deathbed cries out to Jesus, he has his self-interest involved.

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He is thinking of his life, he is thinking of his death, and he is thinking of his life that will come after death. But when anyone cries out to Jesus, those things are upon his or her mind? I mean, what kind of idealism is so pure that we come to him without any of these thoughts? Which one of us is so arrogant as to maintain that when we go to Jesus crying out for salvation,

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we do it not recognizing our own need? Which one of us would go to Jesus and say, "Well, I've considered all the theological possibilities and you passed my test, and therefore I will accept your sacrifice on my behalf."

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Oh no. That's blasphemous. We come to Jesus out of our suffering. We come to him out of our fear. We come to him out of our loneliness. We come to him out of our guilt. Some of us come to him in our dying and in our despair.

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It is for this reason that coming to Jesus is so hard for successful people. People who are powerful, who have a great amount of this world's goods, who are successful in the ways that the world calls important, these people do not call out to Jesus because they see no need of him.

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This is the reason Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich or a popular or a successful person to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Why should they cry out to him? They have other things on which to depend. We are always ready to invent some other thing, to utilize some thing to replace God.

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Some of us depend upon society and some upon money and some upon power and some upon charm and some upon science and some upon education and some upon politics and some upon religion. We always have our ways, don't we? One, two, hitch. One, two, hitch.

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It's only when we're desperate, it's only when we come to him and say, "Lord, you have the words of eternal life. To whom else we can go? No one." It's only when we are pressed to the place where we must say out, "Lord, if you don't remember me, then I will be altogether unremembered."

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It's only when we pray like that, that in extremis prayer, that we're heard. Because that's the only prayer that's real. See, here's the truth of it. You can't reach the beginning of God until you've reached the end of yourself. We hear the gospel all our lives. We hear about God's love from our cribside.

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Maybe the first songs we ever learned to lisp were the songs we learned in Sunday school. And preacher after preacher with eloquence has presented to us the pathos of the cross. And we can repeat the story of the cross. We may know the story of the cross better than any other story that we know.

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And it means nothing until we turn to the cross as our only hope. And when you turn to the cross in desperation, when you turn to the cross because there's no place else that you can go, then the blood runs out of your face, and then your insides begin to quiver, and your senses begin to pay tricks on you, and your soul moves into a tumult of agitation.

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It's the difference between enduring, reading love stories, and falling into love yourself. There's a great gulf between reading about love and falling in love. And to know about the cross historically, or to know about the cross religiously, is not to know about the cross personally. And it's when we cry out, "Lord, remember me," because there's no other hope,

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that we cry out really, and genuinely, and personally, and existentially, and it's at that moment that we hear him say, "Today, with me, in paradise." It's at such a moment that we drink from his wounds, and find that we no longer belong to ourselves. This wonderful word of pardon comes immediately, and notice also that it comes to the thief intimately.

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Jesus says, "You will be with me." I want to talk about heaven with you for just a moment. Some people think it's morbid to talk about heaven. I don't think so. It's morbid to talk about death as an escape from life. It is not morbid to talk about heaven.

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When you think of heaven, what do you think of? Do you think of rest? Do you think of release? Do you think of reunion with loved ones? Those are all good thoughts. But most of all, heaven will be to be with Jesus.

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The Bible says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Someone asked Karl Barth, the great theologian, who was the first person he wanted to see in heaven. He said, "Mozart." Well, to each his own. For me, the one I want to see is Jesus.

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And I think it will be a long, long time after that till I will want to see anyone else. Because of the glory of him. The Apostle Paul, when he was talking about heaven, says, "It will be to be with Christ." And then he doesn't say anything else, because you see, when you said that, you said what's really important.

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The Bible doesn't say a great deal about heaven, and it doesn't say much about heaven, because, well, all of our pictures are chained to the earth. When you try to talk about heaven, you're straining in history to get outside of history. We talk about golden streets, and we talk about pearly gates,

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and we talk about ten thousand harpers harping on their harps. We're straining, you see, to reach beyond our mortality. And I think those pictures are altogether beautiful and valid. I'm perfectly willing to say that heaven will be a place where the gates are of pearl and the streets are of gold,

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and no one tries to steal either the gates or the sidewalks. Maybe this is as close as we can come to the reality of what heaven will be. The other reason that the Bible doesn't say a great deal about heaven is because heaven is summed by simply saying, "It will be in the presence of Jesus."

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That's what the thief was longing to hear. Not only the word of pardon, but the word of promise. "You're going to be with me." If nothing else were there, it would be enough to see him, and to talk with him, and to be with him. And if that isn't the greatest desire of your heart,

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then look seriously at the reality of your own experience of him. Heaven will exhaust every desire our soul has. Heaven will satisfy every need. It will fulfill every dream. Heaven will heal every wound, and it will quench every thirst,

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and it will strike every chord in our hearts. Heaven will complete us, and transform us, and transfigure us, and illuminate us. Heaven above everything else will be this. To be with him in paradise.

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What a sight that must have been. When the angel stood on the bejeweled parapets of heaven, and waited for the return of the Son of God. He'd been gone for thirteen years now on his mission to the earth, to time and space.

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And now he was to return home, and they stood there watching and waiting for his appearing. And the sound must have been filled with the music of the spears, and all the great glory of heaven was waiting. And they looked, and when they saw him come, there must have been puzzlement and wonderment,

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because he didn't come alone. There was another walking with him, and they could tell because they walked so close. More than their hands were united, their hearts and their minds were one. When Jesus came home, you see, he had a thief by the hand.

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Someone he found at Calvary. They came together, out of hell, on the way to heaven. Immediately, and intimately. Out of the world at one, two hitch, one, two hitch, they came walking.

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One, two, three, one, two, three, verily, verily, with me in paradise. We will all sleep. And then, in Jesus' likeness, we will rise. And we will love, and we will adore him.

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And we will see him with our eyes. And as the bride looks not at her wedding gown, but at her bridegroom's face. So we won't look at heaven. We'll look at the King of Grace.

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We will not look at the crown he gives, but at his nail-pierced hand. We will look at Jesus, the fairest in heaven's land. So when in your moments of storm and stress, when the thunder of tragedy is all about you, and the roar of ruin is so great in your ears that you can't hear yourself and you can't hear God,

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think back to Calvary. Think of a thief there who addressed a king, and a king who responded immediately to a thief. Think of how out of that hell came heaven. How out of a one, two, hitch world, they came together into the one, two, three rhythm of eternity.

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And pray like the thief did, out of your Calvary, "Lord, remember me." And you will hear him say, "Verily, verily, this day I am with you, and in my Father's house are many mansions, and I have prepared a place for you, that where I am, you may always be."

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And when you hear that, like the thief, your soul will be at peace. Let us pray. We thank Thee, Lord, that we can pray out of our desperation. For it's only when we're desperate that we pray truth.

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They stood there watching and waiting for His appearing, and the sound must have been filled with the music of the spears and all the great glory. That if we come to Thee in truth, You answer us with pardon and promise. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.

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Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]