Jesus, Remember Me

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So listen out, maybe follow us on Catholic influences, Instagram for some sneak peaks and then we're going to have a bit of a break and come back. Season three 2020. Do we in , can we give anything away about season three? Oh , are we still waiting for feedback from people? I mean always send us your feedback. Um, but it's going to be a bit of a mixture of season one and season two. Oh yeah . Okay . I don't know how that mashed together, but we worked away. Yeah. So this is going to be exciting.

Scriptures set in the scripture. We love the Bible and butter also. And think season one was based on topics and interviews. So I'm guessing we're bringing some of those back interviews , some exciting people again. Oh , it's not that I'm sick of your voice, that you're sick of my voice. It's just that we love other voices. That's means more work for you and more socializing for you. Oh my goodness.

Look, I gave the paper what they want doesn't mean that's what I want, but do it for Jesus, Jesus, and for Jesus people. Hey. That's how it feels. Yeah , that's good. Cause Danny , for those of you who don't know is a , a severe introvert. Makes it sound like a disease. I do not. I'm an introvert. I don't get a lot of more severe than I am. Yeah. I don't find much joy in social , but that's okay. I love people. You just got, you're addicted yourself. You love people. No , no , no . I love them.

I just don't just feel a lot of them. I like, I'm quite social on line, but please don't ask to have coffee with me or don't call me. There's actually, this is off topic, iTunes or iPhone, whatever has done this new update where you can put a silencing feature on. So if it's, if it's like a phone number that your phone doesn't recognize at all, it doesn't even ring. It just goes straight to voicemail. But at my number is like, yeah, so if you bring me, you going to go straight to voicemail.

But anyway your galaxy haven't done it before. Cause then my drummer never answers my calls. He says, text me and then I'll call you. Also. Sam doesn't reply randomly either. Yeah , please reply. And it's not like he's going to listen to our podcast anyway. Well you can send him a message to say listen to the podcast. So he knows to reply to me. Thanks. But yeah, so galaxy, you have had this feature on the , I'm trying to say, I think because Zeb has it and he has a galaxy.

But let's get to the scripture verses today. What scriptures are we're reading . Um, so this is the final week of ordinary time for a year say , and then next week it's happy new year to the church, which is exciting. So we're still in Luke's gospel. We've jumped ahead a bit though.

So our Luke chapter 23 just to talk about that, like we've jumped like yeah, so like we moved all these chapters and then all of a sudden now, just before advent, which is the birth of Christ, we're talking about, we're at the cross. Jesus is already up on the cross. We mean we missed a lot. We'll come back to that though. Yeah . And then we'll come back to the cross set. Lent. Yeah . Okay. So let's, let's go here. So this is verses, look Luke 23 this is 35 to 43

But the other abuse him saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation and we indeed justly for we are receiving the jury rewards of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingly power. And he said to him, truly, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.

I remember like same church every year growing up and just [inaudible] Oh, we went, we went to the bigger church cause I wasn't a good Friday's touch Euro Tatura it's still

You know, or let's say we're crucifying Jesus. That's why we have these two, three thieves in a waiting room. Let's do it all at once. Now , this was very deliberate. This was very intentional. They were two people, two thieves, two brigans who were notorious when notorious criminals, people who were dead , the scum , so to speak, of criminals, and they were put on the left and the right of Jesus still just to humiliate him, just to humiliate Jesus.

Just to show, Hey, you're just as dirty as the rest of them. And it was, but this place of , of humiliation and then became, as we hear it through the scripture place of glory, glace of grace, of messy . And this is what God does as we often talk about, I even have t-shirts about it, that God turns our mess into a message. And this is what God, this is a typical, like typical example of, of Jesus doing that in this scripture. So there are a few characters here .

There's the good thief , that's the bad thief typically, that we know as a good team , the bad teeth , and as Jesus. So there's this conversation going on and there's a lot of tradition that comes with this. Good thief, not the bad thief. We hear nothing of, we just know that he was a bad thief. But there are different names throughout, like the three Kings, you know, do you remember the names of the three Kings? That's it through tradition.

I can't remember them, but actually they're there are , um , they're given names through tradition, not in the scripture, but also this good thief. The spenders thief was , was given a name and some would call him like a true tradition , call him. There are three versions of it that's dismiss or demos or Demarcos . Okay. So these were names traditionally that were given for the good thief.

But the good thief also there comes a story, you know, like with st sometimes when we don't know the lives of the saints, sometimes people throughout history came up with stories which devotional stories of what they assumed a life of this. Um, the Saint was , um, something might be true, but we don't know. It's lost between, let's call it legend. Okay. And so the legend has it that there was that this summer, so demos . So Doomocracy was a Judean Robinhood , okay .

Some people thought that he was this Robin hood that used to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Another tradition is this, that I found really interesting. So the idea was this, when Jesus and the Holy family, Jesus was a newborn baby and they were journeying from to Egypt. No, I'm fleeing Egypt from Bethlehem to Egypt, actually going into Egypt. Jesus. Um , the Holy family was robbed, okay? This is the legend, okay?

That he, the Holy family was rubbed and they were tied up and they were about to kill the Holy family, so to speak, okay? But then what happened was the son of the rubber, so baby Jesus, this is the legend. And he fell in love with this baby Jesus. And he held his baby Jesus and he, and he told you to this baby Jesus was so cute.

And tradition has this, and this is the quote that's tradition has this young boy holding baby Jesus saying this, Oh , most blessed of children, if ever there come a time for having mercy on me, then remember me and forget me not on this hour. So this rubber, the son of the rubber is asking for mercy, said one day, maybe you're going to have mercy on me, so I'm going to have mercy on you and spay your life. And then Jesus goes away scot-free , okay.

Now this rubber youth they say was and then became the thief at the right hand of Jesus, the good thief. And the next time they meet is in Calvary .

I say to you, and this is serious , like, you know, it's, you have to correct me whenever I say anything that might be wrong, father. Um , but I , I think based on my research, it comes from the Hebrew word like amen, which is like, so be it. It's like this solar , like, yes, this is going to happen. So as soon as he said, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Like he's saying like, yep , absolutely. Like you will be with me in paradise today.

But until that moment, like, you know, with the Jewish tradition, the Gates of paradise were closed for sinners. So he liked this good thief, wouldn't have had the opportunity to go to paradise had Jesus not had mercy on him. And it was at that moment when he, you know, a few moments later when he died and he in the cradle , we say he descended into hell and then he ascended into heaven. That's when these Gates of were opened

So people who even were alive before the crucifixion and those after we're all saved by that same moment in history, in space and time, known as the crucifixion, the Calvary. And so Jesus descends into hell, opens up the Gates of hell for those who otherwise would have gone into heaven, even though they deserve hell because of the cross. And then they are open the up and then they go to heaven. But again, that's a anthropomorphic, that's sort of using human language in space and time.

And so in the creed we say that he descended into hell to open up the Gates of heaven, so to speak. And then , um, went to , uh , ascended into heaven to carry all those who had been in hell and through a fault of their own, but not because they didn't have the mercy of Jesus. They were allowed into heaven. And so this is the opening where Jesus is on this cross and is saying tonight in using space and time, you will be with me in heaven because I'm going to descend.

I'm going to open up the Gates of heaven for you. But another interesting thing about this fact is this scripture of us that this is the only person throughout all of scripture through scripture that we know is in heaven. You see, no one was a promised heaven. No one was ever promised heaven like this thief, and no one has ever guaranteed heaven like this thief, not Mary, not not anyone. I mean, I'm not saying that Mary isn't in heaven because we know that she's in heaven.

We know that the saints are in heaven, but through scripture alone, if you don't take through tradition, through scripture alone, Jesus, this thief is the only one we know through scripture that is in heaven. And I think this is pretty amazing. The first person we know that is in heaven, so he's missed him, but the word he uses is not heaven. What's the word they use? Paradise. Well, paradise in in Persian language. It was an enclosed garden.

It was a garden that the Persian King , um, Persian King had access to , to, to paradise and it was , um, he would invite his elite , um , those who have served well, those who have been faithful to him, you would invite them access into this enclosed garden where they could have as much fruit as they want. They could have as much rest as they want. They could have as much access to even the King himself as they want. It was, it was a key into the kingdom.

And so he was, so this is what he's promising. This thief is not promising him eternal life. He's promising him eternal access to the King. It's promising him rest is promising him and something that is only for the elite, only for those who have been absolutely faithful to the King. I think it's pretty awesome. May that this unfaithful thief who was said there to humiliate Jesus all of a sudden is being promised paradise. This access into heaven.

And you know, Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and the scribes and he had dinner with tax collectors and met with all these sinners. And then the one person that he confirms will be with him in paradise is a thief, had been crucified, was about to die or you know, for their sin. And yet Jesus was saying like, well tonight you will be in paradise.

But even in Catholic belief, we believe, we believe in MSCI because even the hail Mary pray, we're asking for Mary to pray for us and as now, but also at the hour of our death, because we believe that that the hour of our death is when we need the grace most. That's when there's going to be a wall for us soul. That's the moment where the devil is going to be working the hardest, but also God's grace is going to be the strongest.

And so this is why we pray for again, married to, to fight for us at that moment. And this is what to what Jesus, Jesus was talking to this thief, but guess who was at the foot of the cross? That was Mary Mary. They're interceding as well.

So I'm sure she, there was praying for this thief and knew the MSCI and witnessing this moment of mercy and that she probably look, you know, look, never saw Jesus, look now never had a conversation with Jesus, but we know that Luke fought to write his gospel, would have interviewed Mary, would have spent time with Mary because the devotion he has for marrying this scripture is unprecedented in no other scripture. So he, he must have spent a lot of time with John and a lot of time with Mary.

And so I imagine it , it was Mary that was telling him this story and I can imagine how hard you see my , my Jesus, my Jesus showed messy and showed messy even at the most critical moment. And then to think that very woman is the one we cry to at the hour of our death to bring us to Jesus, to bring us to this very same grace that this thief himself experienced. So in a sense, I, and you are this thief on the cross being shown mercy and grace.

Um, he works in the same building as us. The other day. He brought his baby into the office. He's 10 months old. He was so cute. He just like clung onto it like a little koala. And in our office at the moment we have like a chalkboard with a quote . At the moment we have an a Saint Catherine of Sienna court and yeah. Wow. That's looks like a suit. Who drew that? Thank you. Wait, are you going to say it's nice? It's very nice. Thank you.

They're saying like, save yourself your heart if you are the King of the Jews, if you are the chosen one of God, like you can get down. And he called , there's not enough nails in the world that could have held him up on that cross cause he's great as stronger. Yeah, he is. You know, he's bigger than that. There's nothing impossible. And yet he stayed there because of the love that he has for us and the love that he had for that. Good faith and the bad faith and those mocking him.

I'm just in the verses before we enter into the gospel this week. So it's just earlier in chapter 23 it says, forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do. Like he at that moment, he was just full of love and mercy for everyone. Even those that were persecuting him, even those that were nailing him to the cross with the nails that he didn't really need to be held up there. It's love that's going to hold him up there. But yeah , you know, he did that for us. Heck, how powerful is that?

So even though God does pour mercy upon us, it requires us to ask for mercy. It requires us to receive that mercy. So God being merciful in a sense is not enough. We have to be able to receive it, to ask for it, to repent of our sins. And this is what the good thief and then became an evangelist even though maybe not an effective one there. And then because he was telling the the bad thief, now can't you see what you've done wrong?

Can't you see that we have done nothing wrong and that we have done everything wrong and this man has done nothing wrong just, and he was basically asking this good thing , the bad thief to repent, but we again have no evidence of him repenting. So he became this evangelist and that I find as well in the, in the good thief encouragement as well. Because so many times I've preached the gospel with no results, sometimes with results, but so many times without results.

But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop with this. This is a being an evangelist, being someone who evangelizes is a consequence of our reception of the mercy of God.

And then just turning to Jesus and speaking directly to Jesus and we have that kind of access and then this good, they've has even more access when he says that he will be with him tonight in paradise, lack the all access pass, I guess. But we have that access on earth to , to speak directly to Jesus, to have that relationship with him and focus on that now while we're on earth so that we can be with him in paradise forever.

But also we understanding that it's through relationship, through speaking to Jesus, through and this encounter and ongoing and counter with Jesus. So this, this Sunday, this Sunday, just to spend some time, even as you listen to the gospel and ask God, ask God, God, please let me be like this. Good thief. There's good thief who is promised heaven. You and I all poem promised paradise.

But the thing is, we need to be people who are ready and repentant and ready to accept this messy and this grace.

And we will do everything in our power with the help of God to get that you know that message out. We are here for you and we want to journey with you and become the saints that we are called to be.

So please get in touch with this on Instagram at Catholic influences underscore or Instagram, Twitter and [email protected] also head onto the website, fig ministry.com forward slash podcast cause we've done a few little changes there so hopefully there's more resources that can help you as study a little bit more in your own time into the scripture. And really break open it more in your own lives.

Um , but also an easy way to contact us and things like that. So please get in touch. We really, really would love to hear from you and snail mail and snail mail. How can I forget? In the last episode, the old box, 96 Strath Dale , Victoria and three five five zero Australia. I've just moved to a house around the corner from that post office. Now people will know where to find you. Post code three five five zero next to the post office, right next door. There's a big red sign, which has