‘In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise’

One of the thieves has just confessed that he is a sinner, justly being punished, and he has also confessed his belief that Jesus is innocent and is the Messiah (Luke 23:43). He has asked to be remembered by him as he comes into his kingdom. What is most significant here is not that he recognises Jesus as the messiah, sent by God – other such incidents have already happened in Luke’s gospel – but that he is the first to recognise Jesus as the messiah precisely in the midst of his suffering and imminent death. Again, it is not the first time that Jesus has told someone that today they have entered into the blessings of salvation, but it is the first and only time it is expressed in terms of being with Jesus in Paradise.

This is the one place in Luke’s Gospel that the word ‘paradise’ is found. Why use the term here? It is based on the Hebrew word for garden and as such harkens back to the story of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve communed with God, walking with God, peacefully enjoying God’s provision. At its centre was the tree of life from which humanity had, following their sin, been prevented from eating of its life-giving fruit. The Jews looked to a return to the blessings of Eden, of Paradise, and of eating of the tree of life again.

I think it is significant that in confessing his sin and his belief in Jesus, the thief is looking at a suffering man dying nailed to a cross, often referred to as a tree (eg Acts 5:31, 10:39, 13:29). He sees in this man his hope of salvation. And Jesus takes up the situation they are both in, with all its horror, and makes of it a reference to the return to Eden. In effect he is affirming and deepening the faith of the thief in a crucified Christ, inviting him to recognise that in looking at Jesus nailed to the cross, he is looking at the tree of life, and in faith eating its fruit. He has already entered into the blessings of paradise, enjoying the close presence of God, even in his sufferings. And of course, not only are sufferings not a barrier to receiving God’s life but neither will death be. Jesus assures him that after they have both died that very day they will enjoy each other’s presence beyond the grave.

All this indicates a Lucan theology in which God is already at work saving the world and being glorified on the cross and in suffering as well as through and after the cross. The crucified Christ is the gateway to Paradise. Death need no longer exclude us from Paradise, but embraced in faith it is the means by which we enter into the fullness of its blessings. The cross will bring us the blessings and life of Paradise, but we can already taste and enjoy its blessings and life in faith now. It is no longer the instrument of a cursed death, but is the tree of life.