Remember Me

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Luke 23:42-43 

 

Imagine you are the thief on the cross next to Jesus.  You see how badly He has been beaten and you wonder if He truly is the Savior.  You realize that by the end of this day, you will be dead.  You may have heard Jesus' teaching.  You probably have heard others talking about Jesus' healing in the name of God.  As you feel your breathing becoming more and more labored as you hang there on the cross for your crimes, you realize that Jesus is the One.  He really is the Messiah.  On the other side of Jesus is the criminal who is arrogant to the end.  In fact, even as he, too, is dying slowly and painfully, he demands Jesus perform a miracle and save them all.  You pull yourself up painfully so you can gasp a breath and tell him to shut up!

 

Once more, you dig deep and summon the strength to raise yourself up again, fighting the intense pain, to gasp a breath and say, "Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."  There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayers we can pray so well as this one.  "Jesus, remember me."  

 

Isn't that what we truly want? To be remembered by Jesus?  Perhaps that should be our prayer even now, "Jesus, remember me."  When Jesus gave the Disciples the last supper, he told them to remember Him.  Remembering someone is a powerful gift.  To be honest, I am horrible with remembering people.  I can remember either the name or the face, but seldom both, at least until I get to know you.  And there's the key to Jesus!  The thief didn't even give his name, he just asked Jesus to "remember me."  Jesus already knew him and loved him and was, at that moment, dying for him.  And He took the time to say kindest words one could hope to hear, "Today YOU will be with ME in Paradise."

 

The one thing that stuck out to me in this scene is that the thief had probably spent a lifetime living against God's Will, probably had lived a life that he messed it up over and over.  I can identify with that.  I, too, have messed up over and over!  Yet, even with a life blackened by sin, this man was forgiven at the proverbial last second and entered Paradise with Jesus.  There's hope for us because Jesus doesn't stop loving us or caring for us or reaching out to us.  And it doesn't matter how badly we have messed our lives up, Jesus died for us and that should give us hope to run to Him and ask Him to remember us.  Isn't it time to ask to be remembered?