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. . . As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord . . . Joshua 25:15b
Seven Last Words—
“I Tell You the Truth, Today You Will Be with Me in Paradise,” by French painter and psychoanalyst Macha Chmakoff, from the Akitab SABDA website.
Jesus Loves
Jesus Loves
By Fergie Horvath
In a week that is called holy and a day that is called good, it strikes me that the words holy and good are mirror images of torture and death, which frankly, is completely unsettling. C. S. Lewis agrees saying, “Death—it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.” On Good Friday, death and love go hand in hand. It really is about how much . . . Jesus loves.
The very fact that the words crucifixion and love find themselves at home in the same sentence speaks to the oddity of our faith—that a Friday of death is called good and that crucifixion, in the case of Jesus, is an ultimate, public display of love. This love is not lost on the one bandit being crucified with Christ, who with nothing left but imminent death, asks that one day, he might know that love too.
And Jesus’ response should not be lost on us. He tells the thief that he will be in paradise. Really? A thief? “Yes,” says Jesus. “Really.” Because, as C. S. Lewis says, “. . . to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because—HE is Love.”
Are you lovable or are you a thief? It doesn’t matter. Because it’s not about the kind of person you are. It’s about the kind of person Jesus is, and how much Jesus loves you, how much Jesus loves me, how much Jesus loves a robber, all in exactly the same way. It really is about how much . . . Jesus loves.
© 2013 Fergie Horvath
Rev’d Fergie Horvath is the rector of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Greer, SC. Before that, she served as a deacon for 13 years in this diocese. She has been married to her husband Gary for 40 years and they have one daughter, Rebecca, who lives in Spartanburg. Fergie holds an undergraduate degree in Music Education (emphasis Piano) from the University of Tennessee, a graduate degree in Music Education (emphasis Voice) from the University of Kentucky, and a Master of Divinity Degree with a concentration in Spirituality from Virginia Theological Seminary. She enjoys all kinds of music, being at the lake or in the mountains, and traveling.
[Two musical interpretations of "Today you will be with me in paradise": (i) from Charles Tournemire's Seven Last Words of Christ, "Hodie mecus eris in Paradiso" (instrument only); (ii) gospel music and video.]
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