2026 Midweek Lenten Sermon B
Rev. Rolf Preus| March 4, 2026| Luke 23:39-43
Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, 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.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
There are many words for it. It’s where the saints go to wait for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. We usually call it heaven. The Bible calls it a rest, a sleep, being gathered to our people, to depart and be with Christ, and in our text for this evening, Paradise.
It’s not the end of the world. When we die our body and soul are separated. The Christian’s soul goes to heaven, to be with Christ, to Paradise. Our body is buried in the ground. On the last day, God will raise up our body, reunite it with our soul, and we will live forever in glorified bodies that cannot get sick and die. The heathen religions of the East, Hinduism and Buddhism in particular, teach that the body is bad and the goal of their religion is to get rid of their bodies. Christians teach the opposite. We teach that everything God made was very good, and that the human body is good.
Praise to thee and adoration
Blessed Jesus, Son of God
Who to serve thine own creation
Didst partake of flesh and blood.
God would not have taken on himself our nature and become flesh if our bodies were bad. Our bodies are corrupted by sin. This is true. It is our sin that brings about the death of our bodies. This is true. But while the human body is corrupted by sin, it is not inherently evil. The holy God who is incapable of committing any sin joined his own creation. The Bible says that in Christ, “all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.” (Colossians 2:9) God joined the human race to redeem us, body and soul, so that on the last day we might be raised up in glorified bodies to spend eternity in the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells.
Jesus promised that criminal, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Certainly not the man’s body, for his body was tossed into a fire to be burned. At least that’s how the Romans discarded the dead bodies of the criminals they crucified. The man’s body was certainly not with Christ in Paradise. But he was. His soul lived in Paradise even though his body was dead. He was perfected in love and experiencing perfect joy. Sin and death were gone forever. Everyone in Paradise is headed toward eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth that God will establish at the resurrection of the dead.
The criminal to whom Jesus promised Paradise certainly didn’t deserve to go there. He was being put to death because of his crimes. He openly acknowledged that. When the other criminal blasphemed Jesus, he rebuked him, 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.”
Faith doesn’t deserve. It confesses. The criminal confessed his sin and he confessed his faith. He admitted that he deserved to die for his sins. And he confessed that Jesus was Lord, that Jesus was the King of kings, who could rescue that miserable criminal from eternal death. Temporal death is not so frightening when you know you are going to enter eternal life. This exchange between the criminal and Jesus teaches us many things. Let me list four of them.
First, it teaches us that we are not saved by our good works, but by the grace of God through faith in Christ. The criminal had no good works of which to boast. He didn’t deserve Paradise. He deserved hell. God did not give the man what he deserved. He was gracious to him. Jesus had every right to promise Paradise to this man who didn’t deserve it, because Jesus did deserve it. He had done nothing wrong. And he was suffering for the sins of the criminal to whom he promised Paradise. Jesus purchased that man’s entrance into heaven.
Second, it teaches us that there is no such place as purgatory. Purgatory was invented many years ago by theologians who were confused about how a sinner becomes a saint. They thought that it was a gradual process. By cooperating with God’s grace, a sinner gradually became less sinful and more righteous until he was righteous enough to go to heaven. If he died before that happened, which would be the case for most people, he would go to purgatory to be further purified until he was good enough for God to let him into heaven.
But the Bible doesn’t teach us that a sinner becomes a saint by becoming gradually less sinful and more righteous. The Bible teaches that a sinner becomes a saint through faith alone. “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” That’s faith. Through that simple faith that sinner became a saint. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” No debt to pay. No purification in purgatory was necessary. God reckoned to that condemned and dying criminal the obedience and suffering of Jesus as his righteousness. He was fully justified.
Third it teaches to trust in what Christ promises, not in what he doesn’t promise. The one criminal wanted Jesus to spare him from the pain of the cross. The other wanted Jesus to give him the glories of heaven. So many people look to Jesus as a temporal Savior, that is, as one who will give them things they want in this life. Jesus will relieve their poverty, provide them with bodily health, establish justice in this world, and the list goes on. The penitent criminal had heard Jesus pray to his Father for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying him. He wanted that forgiveness. He wanted to be with Jesus in heaven. True faith doesn’t expect God to rid us of our problems here on earth. It expects God to take us to Paradise when we die. It expects God to keep his promises.
This brings us to the fourth thing the conversation between Jesus and the penitent criminal teaches us. Jesus is trustworthy. Many people have fallen away from Christ because they saw hypocrisy, hostility, judgmentalism, and other sins in those who confess Christ. The church let them down, so they abandoned Christianity. This is always tragic. Such people don’t understand that Christ is the head of the church. Look to the head of the church and what do you see?
He is innocent. Pontius Pilate saw it before he sentenced Jesus to die. The penitent criminal saw it while Jesus was dying. The Roman centurion saw it after Jesus died. St. Peter wrote, quoting Isaiah the prophet,
“Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth”; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” (1 Peter 22-24)
Jesus never committed a single sin. He was innocent. And he told the truth. He said to the criminal who confessed him as Lord, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Literally, he said, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus is innocent. There is no deceit in his mouth. He speaks the truth. He is worthy of our trust. To his every word we can confidently reply, “Amen!”
Here’s a question for you. True or false. “A death bed confession takes away a lifetime of sin.” What do you say? False. Confession doesn’t take away sin. Jesus does. The criminal’s confession did not earn him the Paradise Jesus promised him. It was Jesus, dying next to him, who by that dying was winning Paradise for the criminal. Confession doesn’t take away sin. The blood of Jesus does.
One final point. It’s about our baptism. Those who deny that baptism is necessary for salvation will often point to the criminal on the cross to prove their point. He wasn’t baptized. But he was saved. So there. Well, if we were hanging on a cross next to Jesus we could hear the gospel right out of his lips, but we weren’t there when they crucified our Lord. Where is Jesus today? He’s not on the cross. But he is in our baptism. That’s how baptism can wash away sin. In baptism we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. Jesus is in the Sacrament of the Altar. Jesus is in his gospel. So we go to where Jesus is and take him at his word when he promises, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28) Amen