“And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.” Luke 23:33, ESV.
I watched my mom deteriorate for many years and ultimately I watched her die. She was 60 when she died and she had lived a very hard life.
As I suspect many feel after losing a parent, I regret not having asked her more about her past. What I do know is that her parents disowned her when she was around 18 and they would never talk to her again. She had stolen something from them and that was the final straw. She would have left home sometime right in the middle of the 1960s. I obviously didn’t live through the 60s, so much of my impression of that time is probably more of a stereotype. That being said, the stories I heard about my mom’s life always seemed to fit the stereotype perfectly. I heard stories of hitchhiking across the country, a missed opportunity to go to Woodstock, and more than one story about drugs.
By the time I was old enough to remember, her more wild days were behind her. During my childhood she always had a job and her life was usually pretty uneventful. One thing did remain though, the drugs. She used marijuana almost daily and from time to time there would be harder stuff around. Then, when I was around 16, she got sick. I remember visiting her in the hospital and her telling me that the doctors said if she had waited another day to come in she likely would not have lived. She had pneumonia. Looking back I realize she tried to communicate to me just how serious it was, but I was a very selfish kid and kind of oblivious. It would be years before doctors would figure out what was causing the sickness, Hepatitis C.
Right around the time my mom was diagnosed I went through a pretty dramatic change in my own life. When I was 20 I became a Christian. One of the effects of my encounter with Jesus was a deep concern for my mom’s future. This concern led me to both talk to her about Jesus and to pray for her. Over time, by the grace of God, my mom would come to trust Him too. But still she grew sicker and sicker and I couldn’t help but ask a question. If my mom’s sins were forgiven, why was she continuing to waste away? This question seemed particularly relevant because I knew my mom’s condition was a direct result of her own lifestyle choices…her own sin. I would pray often for her to be healed and I knew Jesus could. I knew he had healed people before. In the end the answer to my question came through a story.
When Jesus was murdered, he was hung on a cross between two criminals. At first both of the criminals mocked Jesus. As they hung there dying something changed in one of the criminals. He turned to Jesus and said “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Jesus replied to the criminal “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”. I had known this story for some time, but as I grappled with questions about my mom’s suffering I began to see things in this story I hadn’t before. For one, the story seemed fitting for my mom’s situation. After a lifetime of drug use and hard living she was dying a slow death. Like the criminal she too had turned to Jesus and asked him to remember her. The next thing I noticed was that in this story the criminal does NOT get delivered from his cross. How did I not seen that before? A man dying an agonizing death turns to Jesus for help and instead of calling down an army or angels to deliver him from his cross Jesus replies “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”. This opened up to me a profound reality. I had mistakenly thought that my mom’s experience was somehow unique when really it wasn't.
The truth is we are all dying. This becomes more obvious to me with each passing year. I am slowing decaying and I know my death is coming. In the story of Jesus’ final hours we see a profound picture of the state of the entire world. We are all hanging on a cross slowly dying. And in our midst is this man Jesus, who entered into this suffering with us. We are all criminals sentenced to death. The question is will we turn to him and ask him to remember us. If we do there is no guarantee that our suffering is over, but there is a guarantee that one day it will be.
And so it was for my mom. I was in her room during her final hours. She was unconscious and a machine was breathing for her. She was having seizures every few minutes. It was a terrible sight as I’m sure it was watching a man die of crucifixion. Like that criminal she breathed her last breath. And then….Jesus.
A place called The Skull