Luke 23: 33-43

As they (the ones determined to execute Jesus) came (with him) to the place called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. Jesus was heard to say, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they drew lots to divide his clothing. The (common) people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; he should only save himself, if (that is) he is the anointed one chosen of God." The soldiers also mocked him, approaching him and offering him sour wine, saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself."  There was over (Jesus' head) an inscription: "This is the King of the Jews." One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Aren't you the anointed one? Save yourself and us." But the other (criminal) upbraided him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation as he? At least, we have been condemned justly and are getting our just deserts for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then this one said to Jesus, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus replied, "In truth I tell you, you will be with me in the place of bliss." (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook.)

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The Revised Common Lectionary roughs us up a bit with the appointment of the passage above to be read on the Sunday Next Before Advent. The passage could have been heard at a Good Friday service months ago. Why do the lectionary editors want us to contemplate the scene at Golgotha now?

Maybe because what the early communities of Jesus Jews from the middle of the first century CE onward, which were devoted to him, seemed to remember was his death in light of the ethical wisdom of which he was an exponent. That's exactly how the deaths by assassination of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King are remembered by their devotees.

The church is about to begin once again the round that takes its congregations from the messianic prophecies to the myth-shrouded advent and nativity of Jesus Christ through his beginnings, public career and confrontation with military and government authority -- which ends in the various depictions of his arrest, trial and execution with second thoughts added about his possible "resurrection."

The editors of the lectionary are, with the appointment of the Lukan passage above, helping us to be rational and realistic about what often happens when truth attempts to speak to power.

In this passage, Luke eschews some of the detail Mark proposed and Matthew copied in 15:26-30 and 27: 37-39, respectively. Luke provides his own unique set (23: 39-43). Luke adds the forgiveness-from-the-cross line that has so captivated people for a long time. The danger inherent in the interpretation of the line, thought by a good many commentators to be an interpolation, is who "them" is. The Roman soldiers are not referenced until v. 26. "Them" may be those to whom Pilate is depicted as releasing Jesus, namely the chief priests and the crowd of 23: 4 and 5. It is doubtful that Jesus or anyone like him would have been brought before Roman authorities by Jews (think "standing" here in U.S. jurisprudence). Pontius Pilate, as described by Flavius Josephus, was a sociopath who would have been only too overjoyed to be rid of such an irritant as Jesus was depicted as being. Josephus' Pilate would have enjoyed torturing Jesus himself.

Whoever Luke wanted readers to understand was being forgiven in extremis by Jesus is anybody's guess. Meanwhile, Luke agrees with Mark and Matthew that "rulers" (Matthew names them as "chief priests, scribes and elders" and Mark as "chief priests and scribes") participated in Jesus' public humiliation. Luke has "the people" standing by watching. Luke's mention of "soldiers" joining in the chorus of derision suggests that Rome was involved in the execution, which is almost surely the case as crucifixion by that time had become the choice instrument of terror for the Romans.

Mark and Matthew both mention others who were executed at the same time and place. But the familiar tableau of the three crosses, the middle one being higher, is somewhat misleading. According to Josephus, crucifixions (a time-honored practice of both Persians and Phoenicians) were a regular feature of Judean life under the heel of Rome. Thus, there is some reason to think Jesus was not singled out on Golgotha. His company there were, in Matthew "robbers," in Mark simply "those who were crucified with him" and in Luke "criminals."

Jesus' reply to his fellow "criminal" about being with him that very day in paradise rather vexes systematic theologians (who deserve all the vexation they get) who insist upon a sojourn in the underworld for the dead Jesus. The word we translate "paradise" is a term borrowed from Persian, in which the word means something like "enclosure," or "cloister," suggesting a garden-like place.

It must have been clear to any first century CE Palestinian that Jesus' or anyone's crucifixion would end in death by asphyxiation that, once cut down, he would be thrown into a common grave, i.e. an enclosed space. Calling that "paradise" in Jesus' case might have been akin to Hugh Latimer saying, as the faggots were in full blaze, "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

The allusion to "paradise" may also, by the by, be an endorsement of the innovative belief in resurrection that was a favorite theme of Pharisaism.

The fact that we have this crucifixion gospel thrust at us just as we begin to start to commence the celebration of Christmas is a matter to ponder. Maybe the church is saying to us, "Look, people: The advent and nativity on the verge of which you stand once again was the beginning of the end for the legendary hero of your religion, the one who at a young age set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem and a fateful clash with a power uninterested in having the truth spoken to it."

Was the truth that meeting an enemy with nothing but good will as a weapon and peace as an aspiration is the only way to save ourselves? Is a further truth that, in such a meeting, the one who reverences the Jesus of his imagination must be ready to accept the despising and rejection and acquaintance with grief that has been the lot of many a prophetic figure in any epoch? If so, what can it mean to believe, as Christians say they do, in a god of infinite power and mercy, in a Christ with ultimate saving grace, in a church that supposedly represents both of those supposed realities?

That's a question to ponder on this Sunday Next Before Advent as the old, old story is about to be told anew. Will it be understood in any more effective sense this time around?