Holy Wednesday, 2025

Rev. Thomas Van Hemert

Holy Wednesday

St. Luke’s Passion

April 16, 2025

In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Luke records our Lord’s first words while hanging on the cross, “Father, forgiven them, for they do not know what they do.” Even in the midst of His agony and suffering He preaches the Gospel and declares absolution; He pronounces the forgiveness of sins upon those who crucified Him.

Though He declares that everyone is forgiven and that He receives the wages for our sins, no matter how heinous our sins are, this forgiveness is not received by all. This is because it is received through faith, by trusting in Jesus as the Son of God, the very Messiah Who came for this precise purpose: to forgive sins.

Many of those who crucified our Lord, though He forgave them, were not, in fact, forgiven. Our Lord is crucified between two criminals, two evildoers. They are justly condemned for their sins and justly punished. One of those who was crucified next to Him refused to believe. He was, in fact, not forgiven. He mocked Jesus, even blasphemed Him saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” Both of the criminals crucified next to Jesus were justly condemned and justly punished. The unrepentant criminal wants earthly, temporal relief and saving. He does not know what Jesus has come to give him.

But the other criminal rebuked the one who was unrepentant saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” The repentant criminal knows that the wages for his sin is death. He is condemned to suffer the full penalty of the Law, to receive his just wages. But he calls out to Jesus once more and says, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” He asks for what the Lord loves to give: mercy. For there he had already accepted his punishment and made his plea. And our Lord’s second word from the cross, according to Luke’s account, is a further declaration of the mercy He wants to give. He responds to this justly condemned criminal and says, “Come, today you will be with Me in Paradise. I remember your sins no more. But you, I will never forget. Nor shall you ever be apart from me again.”

At funerals in the Eastern Orthodox Church, they sing a chant called “Eternal Memory.” This is based on the confession of the repentant thief on the cross, asking Jesus to remember him when He comes into His Kingdom. Because to be remembered in the Kingdom of God is the opposite of being forsaken by God. Jesus, while hanging on the cross, suffers an eternity of hell in a mere few hours. He cries out, using the words of Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” The Father turns His back on the Son. Having taken our sins upon Himself, the Son is alone. His Father remembers Him not. He casts Him to the dogs. Bulls of Bashan surround Him. An army of evildoers surround Him. They open wide their mouths ta Him, like a ravening and roaring lion. He is poured out like water. All His bones are out of joint. His heart melts like wax. His tongue cleaves to His jaw. He is alone. Utterly forsaken. Rejected by men and His Father alike.

The thief knew his punishment was just. And he only asked that Jesus remember him when He came into His kingdom. But being remembered in the kingdom of heaven is more than a mere recollection of someone. To be remembered by Jesus is to be loved by Him, to be forgiven by Him, to be welcomed into the kingdom not as a slave, but as a son.

To be forsaken by God is to be forgotten by Him. But our Lord and our Champion suffers this terrible death and is forsaken and forgotten, so that we would be remembered in His Kingdom. And so it is that we come today, and this week of all weeks with a prayer and a petition: that we also would be remembered in His Kingdom. Because to be remembered by God is more than mere recollection of events. If we are to be remembered by God, then so it is that we will not die eternally. We will not suffer the eternity of hell. If we are remembered by Him, we are with Him, even this day in paradise. For as He pronounced absolution from the cross, crying out “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” that absolution is also pronounced, even to us.

This absolution and forgiveness is effected by His cross and passion throughout all time. Though it was our sins, yours and mine that put Him there, He goes to lay down His life willingly and in love for us. And even though we will die as Jesus died and our bodies will be laid in the ground to rest, our Savior has forgiven us and remembers us, and will not let us, His holy ones see corruption.

In +Jesus’ name.