Good Friday 18/4/25
3 cheers for the grumpy crim
The usual path for the preacher when contrasting the two criminals on the cross is to side with the good/bad guy. You know… the one who called out the grumpy crim and asked to be taken to paradise. Here are the good/bad guy’s lines
“Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
All tickety boo. The good criminal does all the right things for himself and for his colleague in crime.
But today is an upside-down sort of day. The prince of life is consumed in death. A convicted bandit is released and the innocent one receives the death sentence.
So today, instead of saying ‘Well done sunshine’ to the good crim, I want to go into bat for the grumpy crim.
The one that roars “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
And that’s all we get. That’s all we know about this guy. He just gets this one little line in the drama and then disappears into obscurity.
Once again we are left with more questions than answers and with a wide, open, generous invitation to come tumbling into the cave of his back story. In the process not only speculate about him but also open up the very real possibility that we might learn something about ourselves. Actually, we find ourselves, as we splash about in an unending and ever-deepening mystery.
When you examine Grumpy Crim’s little tantrum closely, you’ll discover that we are left with three short phrases.
First
‘Aren’t you the Messiah?’
Clearly this chap comes with some preconceived notions of what the Messiah should look like and how they are to behave. A powerless and very much bloodied palliative care patient, is not exactly the Messiah this bandit had in mind. This is not the Messiah he was looking for. And where pray tell, did he pick up the rumour that the squashed gentleman beside him might be the Messiah. Perhaps from the inscription over Jesus’ head. ‘This is the king of the Jews’.
The second phrase is just two words
“Save yourself”
It seems simple enough and follows logically on from the previous question. So if you are the Messiah, really are the Messiah why don’t you save yourself? Avoid the pain and shame and go on for a long and illustrious career of saving the universe and sorting out the Church of God. If you saved yourself now, think of all the thousands you could go on to save. And what is more, think of the example you are setting for those who would gleefully follow you. What sort of career prospects are you offering them?
Finally
‘Save us’.
And this is where the crim has been heading all along. If you are the Messiah and if you can save yourself, then it ought to be a cinch to save us as well.
And all of these things are very understandable.
The desire to see the Messiah in action; to save himself and to rescue us from our own messy entrapment and entanglement. The mushy messes that have encircled us, clutched us and held us close even before we knew they existed.
And if we are brutally honest this chap's questioning prayer is not that much different from our own. The messiah comes to us in brokenness, pierced and humbled. Riding on a donkey and rejected by popular demand.
He doesn’t seem to be able to stop the heinousness of sin in our world and in our lives.. he doesn’t seem to intervene. Today of all days and at this time in history, what we long for is what Nick Cave called an interventionist God. A God who intervenes. But.. we want him to intervene in our way and on our terms and bring about the change that we think would be the mind blitheringly right thing to do.
We do however believe in an interventionist God. Ask Jonah who didn’t want the parish of Nineveh. Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary about how God intervened in her life. Ask St. Paul about the interventionist God who stopped him short on the way to Damascus.
Like the Grumpy Crim we have failed to see that our God is an interventionist God who intervenes most powerfully in the most unlikely scenes, in the most unlikely ways with the craziest of people.
The grumpy crim is just like you and me because we fail to see what is right before us. A God who is already intervening and transforming the world even when and especially when, we think we are seeing something completely different. On the cross and on this day, God intervened and death, and you and I, can never be the same again and our death will never be the same. We just don’t know it… yet. But we will.
I conclude with some words of Nick Cave that I hope you might find helpful. They might also be the crim’s words, or your words or mine. In some flimsy way I hope that they will make sense of this messy homily and the messed up man on the cross.
And I don't believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did, I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
Well, to each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide me into your open arms