Luke 23:32-43 * March 21, 2007 * Midweek Lent 5 * Chaplain Steve Stern

It Is Hidden in Powerful Words

What are the most powerful words that you have ever heard? Some people think the most powerful words are the words that are delivered with force and strength. “ Did you hear that guy”, they will say? “ His voice could overpower the sound of a diesel truck. I have never heard some one talk so loud and forcefully.” Others say, “I’ll never forget what he said. It was so eloquent. It was so wonderfully stated it still sticks in my mind.” Still others say, “My sister could charm the leaves off a tree. She could say things in a way that would make me do what she wanted. She was so clever and manipulative.”

Words of force and eloquence and manipulation are indeed powerful words but I would like to suggest to you today that the words that Jesus speaks as He is being crucified are the most powerful words of all. I doubt that very many people heard the words that He spoke the first time that He uttered them. I doubt that very many people were impressed with them in terms of their eloquence. There were no moments where everyone stopped talking or where everyone fell to their knees. The earth did not stop rotating on its axis. Looking at this scene it would be easy to say, “Nothing powerful happened when He said these things.” In a sense then the power of His words are hidden. They are not immediately apparent. Draw near therefore with me. Come closer to this man on this cross and listen intently to His words. Listen to the power of His words of healing and His words of life.

As I listen to people’s conversations I am often struck by how powerful people’s words are to inflict hurt on the human heart. An old man remembers how his father called him a moron when he was a small child and made a mistake. But the one conversation that stands out in my mind in this regard is a woman who was in her sixties who was going to have heart surgery. She told me she had stopped going to church because when she was in her teens she had been kind of wild and rebellious. She hung around with the bad boys. Her brother, however, was one of the good guys. When he was about eighteen he had his tonsils taken out and unfortunately a few days later he hemorrhaged and died. At his funeral some of the older ladies from the church came up to this woman and shook there heads. “God is sure hard to figure out sometimes,” They said, “He takes a wonderful person like your brother and he leaves a devil like you behind.”

Every time I tell this story I can hear the intake of breath from the audience because every one can feel the hurtfulness of those words. The fact that this lady is telling me about this experience forty some years later told me that the force of those words, the impact of those words, the ability of those words to hurt her heart and hang over her life and follow her thoughts had not diminished in over forty years. If anything the hurt had been multiplied and magnified multiple times. I found my own heart hurting as I heard her words that day and I found myself thinking about this text from Luke’s Gospel when He was being nailed to the cross.

I asked this lady to think about what Jesus was saying when He said, “They don’t know what they are doing.” I have often pondered how Jesus could forgive people for what they did to Him. When Peter said, “I don’t know the man.” When the leaders of the church said, “He saved others but He can’t save himself.” When the soldiers mocked him and beat him and then nail him to a cross and say, “How do you like this throne?” “How does it feel when I pound these nails into your hands?” How could Jesus refrain from screaming and cursing and calling down judgment on all these people? “They don’t know what they are doing.” That tells me that Jesus was able to look past the actions of people into the hearts from which those actions came. Hearts that were controlled by fear and clouded by ignorance and hate and false ideas of how they thought things should be. Jesus really understood people. All their failings and foibles and blindness. And in seeing that they couldn’t help themselves. They were just doing what their twisted natures were telling them to do He was able to love them. He forgave them for what they were doing and He prayed that His father would love them and forgive them too. He prayed that His love and His death, His pain and His suffering would mean that when the moment came that they did know what they had done and they fell to their knees and begged for mercy, the Father would say, “Because of my son, your sins are forgiven.”

Here is where I see healing for my heart. When I think back on all the words of hurt that have been spoken to my heart I now realize it is not about the people who have spoken these words. I should not waste my time waiting for these people to apologize. I should not wait for them to figure out the damage they have done. I should not wait for them to come to me and ask for my forgiveness. The best thing I can do with the hurts on my heart is to first of all think about the times I didn’t know what I was doing. The words I have spoken that have hurt my Savior. The words that came out of my youth, my inexperience, my ignorance, my vindictiveness, my pettiness. And then to see that Jesus’ heart is open to me. He loves me. He understands how I have lost my way. And He wants to give me His heart so I can be as open and understanding and loving as He has been to me. The hurts that others inflict on our hearts is an opportunity for us to ask what am I going to do about this? It’s not about them. It’s about me and where I am going to go and what I am going to do to find the healing that I need.

So think for a moment today about the hurts in your heart. Do you have wounds from words spoken to you when you were a child? Can you still recall them even though they may have been spoken fifty years ago? How long has it been since you have spoken to that brother of yours when you had that fight? Do your ex-husband’s words still raise your blood pressure? Does that friend you used to love and had a falling out with still come to mind and cause you pain?

Don’t wait for them to see the light. Don’t wait for them to get that big flash of insight and come running to you with tears in their eyes saying, “Oh, please forgive me.” Look at the hurts that you have inflicted on Jesus and others. Look at how Jesus has prayed and died for you. Look at how much He wants to give you a portion of His ability to be big hearted. And in the opening to His love, in the enlargement of your heart, in the letting go of the hurts others have inflicted on you, you find the healing your heart needs. You find peace. You find joy. You find time to live a life of love and purpose.

Words of forgiveness are so powerful. They heal the human heart like nothing else can. But as powerful as these words are perhaps even more powerful are the words that Jesus speaks to one of the thieves that hung next to Him. Did this thief hear what Jesus said when He was being nailed to His cross? He might have. He might have wondered at the time, “How can this man say this?” He might have wondered what kind of man is this? And then He watched how Jesus hung silently while He was mocked and jeered. He saw His strength, His peace, His love and the thief looked at himself. So many years wasted. So many chances to turn his life around and he let them go by. Nobody was going to tell him what to do. He knew better than those who were giving him advice. He knew what he wanted. He knew the shortcuts to take. He didn’t care what others thought and what hurt he brought to his victims. And now he saw he had done it all wrong. He had blown it. It was too late. There was no chance for him. As his regrets crashed down upon him this man could think of nothing that he could do or say that would change the sorry life he had lived. He who had such pride and toughness and coldness found himself blubbering like a baby. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “I know there is no hope for me. No chance for me. If I knew you would just remember me, just give me a scrap from the table, I can at least die with that to hang onto.”

What do you think it would feel like to go from having no hope and a mountain of regrets pressing down on your heart to hear this king say, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” To go from hoping to be remembered to being given a place in the kingdom is like going from being a street person to winning the three hundred million dollar lottery. This is unbelievable. The power of these words to give life to a dying heart. The power to assure this man of an eternal existence in eternity. These words are powerful indeed.

Would you like to speak words of power to a dying thief? I know some of you like to read and hear my stories about my experiences in working with dying people and helping them to find Jesus in their last days. But honestly I think we all struggle with this also. We don’t like criminals who have wasted their lives. We don’t like alcoholics who have done nothing but cause their families pain. We don’t like people who live risky lives and now have AIDS. Do you see that there is a connection between the first words that Jesus speaks and these words to the thief? If you don’t have an open heart, if your heart isn’t healed, if you don’t see that you need forgiveness as much as the thief, then you won’t want to sit by his bedside will you?

How often I have had to understand that I the chaplain am no better than the man in the prison cell. No better than the man dying of cancer who never went to church. No better than the prejudiced old man who on his death bed suddenly realizes he has made some terrible mistakes. And as he pours out his regrets and his tears. As he realizes it is too late to make amends I could say, “You should have thought about that a long time ago. You’re right, it is too late.” But as I think of Jesus’ mercy to me I have such good news to say. I can take his hand. I can accept his pain and his regret and then I can say, “You know it isn’t too late. You have seen your need for forgiveness. God has been waiting for you to come to this moment. He wants your heart. His son’s blood covers your sin. Your mansion has been prepared and is waiting for you to occupy it.”

Words that are blared from boom boxes and stereo systems are hard to ignore. Words come at us from every direction until sometimes we find ourselves buried under a blizzard of words and we come to the point where nothing we hear registers. Nothing moves us. Nothing touches us any more. This text reminds me that words spoken softly, words spoken between two people with no one else around, words spoken at times of pain and death still have an incredible power to heal and give life.

Have you seen how Jesus wants you to open your heart to His healing? Have you seen that if He does that you will also find yourself opening your heart to thieves on crosses? May God help us to keep our eyes and hearts open to these thieves so when they cry out we will be there to speak the words of life to them. Amen.